Twilight
by Ehren Hatten
Summary: A girl's family has a strange tendency of having single parents. However, all is not what it seems. She moves to Forks with her father and learns much more than she ever bargained for, including a mysterious young man. chapter 11 up
1. Chapter One

_A/N: Twilight's finally making snap just a bit with its ridiculous story and characters and the boring, boring, BORING writing. I mean, it's enough to make any sane person ready to chuck the damned thing at the author before slitting her throat to make sure she never contributes to the gene pool and to make sure she never writes another fucking thing. I was in the shower admiring my happy blue-green nails and thinking about how to slap together a rebuttal in the form of a story. Edward reminds me of a Tom Riddle that is uncool and lacking in every awesome department possible and Bella… okay, Bella is no Amber. Amber is too cool to be Bella and doesn't take shit from anyone. Bella lies down and takes it because she's stupid and she runs away from a lot and whines because she's a brat and a coward. There you go._

_Now, if I did it with the characters I have in my and Amanda's rpg, I think this would be a perfect retelling with a lot more interesting things going for it. XD Hi Twatlighters! :D Guess what? I'm in ur storiez fuckin' up ur charactrz. :D_

_**Twilight**_

Chapter One

Amber Elric looked out the window and watched the scenery pass by. She was a fairly pretty teenage girl, though very short and thin. She looked a bit younger than her age, which bothered her a little sometimes, but she otherwise didn't care. Her long reddish-blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the back of her head; it was a habit she had adopted since she was much younger to keep her hair from getting in her way. Her father sometimes liked to tell her that she acted a lot like his grandfather, though in female form.

Her father Hughes Elric Jr. sat beside her in the car and drove along the road as they went through the grand state of Washington. He was handsome, very handsome, with dark gold hair that was cropped short and a pleasant, but strong face. His eyes, unlike Amber's, were a deep blue: a trait he often said came from his mother and grandmother, Amber's grandmother and great-grandmother. "We're getting close to Forks, honey. Isn't this place pretty, Amber?" asked Hughes softly. He smiled gently toward his daughter before looking back at the road as it began to rain a little.

They had moved from Texas where her father had been a marine since he was eighteen until he had retired. Their family had been a military family, according to Hughes, for a while. His father had been in the marines for a small time before he had died in combat at the age of twenty-six, leaving Amber's grandmother pregnant and alone. Amber often wondered if being a single parent was a common thing in their family, or a curse, as her own mother had died when she was young. Her great-great-uncle had died when he had been only seventeen from a severe illness, which had left her great-grandfather all alone with Amber's great-great-grandfather until he too died at the age of forty. Her great-grandfather had died at the age of twenty as well at the end of World War II, leaving his son Hughes Sr. and Hughes Sr.'s mother, Winry, all alone.

"Yeah, it's nice, dad," said Amber softly, eyeing the surroundings. She wasn't very fond of the place, but it was better than being no where. She was sure she would become accustomed to living in Washington in time, though she sort of missed the larger city of Austin, Texas where she grew up. Her father being a military man for most of her youth had afforded her the chance to be born in England before they moved back to the states when she was five. As a result she didn't exactly have any actual accent.

"I'm taking a job there as a police officer, Amber," said Hughes softly, "I was promised it when I was looking into moving up here. My friend Sirius helped me look for the house. I hope you don't mind."

"No, of course I don't, dad," said Amber quickly, "Why would I mind?"

Hughes smiled faintly and nodded, affording Amber a small glance before he looked back to the road and turned. "Well, being a military family hasn't exactly helped you make friends. Ever since I left the marines and became a police officer in Austin you've had a bit more stable lifestyle, but still nothing compared to what the kids around you probably had, right?"

"I don't mind. I didn't like many of the kids at school anyway," said Amber. She smiled and looked to her dad with her gold colored eyes.

He glanced at her again and then nodded. "Mind if you could get the map out? I want to make sure we're not lost or anything."

Amber nodded and pulled out the map of Washington that her dad had bought at a convenience store when they had stopped to fill up the car with gasoline. She opened it up carefully and traced the route her dad had marked down before looking out the window for anything definitive to give herself a place to start looking on the map. "We're almost there, dad," said Amber, grinning. "Will the movers have already put the stuff in the house when we get there?"

"Yeah, they did that yesterday. My pal Sirius told me he kept an eye on them while they did it," said Hughes, grinning.

"Sirius Black?"

"Yeah, you remember, right? He's the guy with the motorcycle and leather; sort of a Hell's Angel?"

Amber smirked faintly and nodded before closing up the map and holding it in her lap. "Yeah, I remember him. He lives up here now? I thought he was back in England."

"Eh, he was, but he moved over here because of your Aunt Rouge," said Hughes. "He's Uncle Sirius now, by the way."

"Oh? They finally married?" Amber raised her eyebrows as she eyed her dad. "I'm sure Damien likes that a lot." Her cousin Damien, the son of Aunt Rouge and Sirius, had always been picked on since he was a boy about his mom and dad not being married.

"Yeah, a small ceremony before a priest." He chuckled and shook his head. "He had his friends Remus and James there as witnesses. He bought their tickets for them to come over from England for a short stay."

"I'm glad he's happy now," said Amber, "And I'm sure Damien is happy, too."

"Sirius said James challenged him to a motorcycle race around the town before James' wife Lily put a stop to it. She allowed them to have it around the block, though." Hughes grinned as Amber laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, I know. Crazy bunch they are. Lily said James and Sirius were going to teach Harry and Damien how to be terrible men if they kept that up. Glad you could get to know them when you were little, though it's a shame you only got to see Sirius while growing up here in America. James and Remus are good guys, though they couldn't come to America that often. Sirius only stayed here because of my sister Rouge."

"I'm sure he missed them terribly," said Amber.

"Ah, yeah, he did. Thankfully, both James and Sirius come from rich families, so they could afford a small trip occasionally." They turned and Amber saw a small town seemingly appear around her with buildings and a few fast food restaurants along the road. "Looks like we've made it to Forks, honey."

As they made their way to the new house that Amber had only seen in the photograph her dad had received from her new uncle Sirius, so when she saw the house it was a mild surprise to see that her bicycle was locked up on the front porch of the house, away from the rain, and Sirius was sitting with her Aunt Rouge on the bench swing next to it. She smiled and, when they drove up into the driveway, got out of the car to hug her Aunt Rouge tightly. Rouge was much taller than her with a fair bust size and long red hair, all of which Amber did not possess.

"Good grief! Hughes! I thought I told you to give this girl some meat! Look at you! You're all skin and bones!" Amber flushed brightly and started to move away from Rouge before the woman pulled her close again. "Oh, don't mind me, Amber! I just love teasing!" Rouge then leaned down and kissed Amber on her forehead before moving back over to Sirius' side and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Sirius, a very handsome man with shoulder-length black hair and pale gray eyes, stood grinning at Amber and winked at her. "Don't worry on it, love, she's just happy to see you again," he said; his English accent was prominent, especially to Amber's American-trained ears. "Are you ready to see the new house? I made sure to get Rouge's help in organizing some things. We'll help unpack everything and move things if you want."

"Thanks, Sirius," said Hughes after hugging Rouge. "We'll need the help I think."

"Oh, it's no problem, really," said Rouge quickly, "After all, you're family."

Amber beamed happily at them all as they all made their way into the house. It was a medium sized house, the side paneling white with the eaves and window borders painted a deep red. Inside it was fair sized, though the furniture sort of filled up the space. Sirius and Hughes both worked hard to move things around properly and move boxes out of the way while Rouge made tea with Amber.

"I was surprised when I saw you, Amber," said Rouge as she poured the hot water from the tea kettle into four mugs, "You look so much like the photos of your great-grandfather that it's almost frightening."

Amber blinked and put her hands into her pockets for lack of something to do with her hands. "What do you mean?"

Rouge beckoned with a finger and pulled Amber away to a photo album that looked quite old. "This was made by my father, your grandfather, when he was your age. He found some old photos of our family dating back to the turn of the century practically."

Amber looked through the pictures carefully. The writing was a little hard to read, however, due to the age of the ink and paper. Thankfully, Rouge was quite willing to point out everything. "This is a photo of my great-grandfather Hohenheim Elric when he was a baby, about a year old in 1900. He was born in Germany. And here is his wife when she was a baby, Trisha. Here are their respective photographs growing up too."

Hohenheim Elric and Trisha growing up were an interesting set of photographs all in that old sepia tone found in old photographs. Hohenheim looked exactly like Amber did at that moment, complete with long hair pulled back into a ponytail by the time they had reached the teenage photographs. Rouge kept talking and said that Hohenheim's family had moved to England before the Great War started up and that was where he had met Trisha. Trisha had a similar look to Amber's dad, a pleasant but strong face with wide, smiling eyes, but her hair was dark. When Hohenheim grew up to be about nineteen he married Trisha and a year later they had Edward Elric, Amber's great-grandfather, and the next year afterward Alphonse Elric, Amber's great-great-uncle.

Then, when Amber saw her great-grandfather's photograph at the age of fifteen, when his father Hohenheim had died at the age of forty in 1939, Amber stopped and stared. Aunt Rouge had been correct in saying she looked exactly like Edward Elric. Hohenheim as a teenager had been startling enough to see her face in the photograph, though more masculine admittedly, but Edward's face was as round as hers was and his eyes were as angled and sharp as hers. His hair was pulled back in a long braid at the back of his head and he wore a sharp look of determination.

Alphonse Elric, on the other hand, reminded Amber of Trisha. He held the same gentle, but strong face and pleasant eyes, but his light hair was cropped short in comparison to Edward. "Three years later, Uncle Alphonse died of pneumonia and was buried out in the family graveyard. Edward married Winry Rockbell here," Rouge showed her a picture of a lovely young woman with pale hair and a bright, smiling face, "the year before Alphonse had died and Hughes Sr. was born soon afterward. Edward died in 1944 at the age of twenty in combat. My father and grandmother moved to America then and my father joined the marines. He married Alisha, here, and had me. Then, he died when mom was six months pregnant with your dad."

"So, great-grandpa Edward is buried in England?" asked Amber.

"Well, sort of. They sent back a box with his coat and watch inside it with his name inscribed on it. The doctor who had sent it had said there wasn't enough of him left to burry," said Rouge softly. "I can't imagine the pain granny Winry must have gone through."

"And great-uncle Alphonse is buried there, right?"

"Yes, of course," said Rouge, "Why would you ask something like that?"

"Because it says here that he disappeared," said Amber, pointing to the page in front of her. Indeed it was an obituary with Edward's photograph with him wearing a British uniform and underneath his photograph was the obituary saying, "…he died in service to his country and was buried next to his brother, whose body had disappeared after his death."

Rouge frowned at it before closing the book up and handing it to Amber. "Here, I'm giving it to you to take care of now. All right?"

Amber nodded and clutched the photo album to her body. "All right, Aunt Rouge," she said, smiling at her pretty aunt. "So, where is Damien?"

"He's at home with a couple of friends doing a science project," said Rouge, grinning faintly. "Likely, they're playing videogames, though. I'll have to get Sirius to disconnect it if Damien doesn't actually work on anything. He's a freshman this year at your new high school."

Amber smiled faintly and nodded. "All right, Aunt Rouge." Then, she put the photo album away into her new room and surveyed the mess she would have to tackle before being able to do anything with her bed. Boxes were everywhere. Thankfully, though, her father and her uncle had been able to move a few into her closet with her clothes. So, with that ahead of her, she dove right into putting things in their places.


	2. Chapter Two

_A/N: lalalala so yeah not much going on. I need to repaint my nails and I over did my crunches so now my stomach hurts a bit. .o Thankfully, my old gymnastics stretching helps. ^^_

_Ms. Arakawa and Ms. Rowling are my inspiration, yo! Don't be dissin' m'gals!_

**Chapter Two**

Going to school proved a little difficult, since Amber hardly knew the way to the local high school and Sirius' map proved harder to read than a doctor's prescription note to the pharmacy. It was chilly outside, the clouds overcast with slight drizzling rain. She pulled on her father's old camouflage shirt as a jacket before walking out with her backpack on her back. After securing the house, she pulled up her bicycle and started pedaling down the street, looking briefly at her map. This too proved to be a little difficult as the rain kept dropping on it while she attempted to cover it with her arm as she looked this way and that. One of these days she would have to get a car to drive so she wouldn't have to worry about this anymore!

Riding across the wet streets wasn't too hard. She had done it before several times in Austin when going to school, though typically she would have a bus to stop at to get a ride part of the way. Here there didn't seem to be one, but since the school was closer to her than her old high school back in Texas she didn't worry too much on it.

She began to cross the street for the school boundary when she slammed on her breaks as a black car nearly rammed into her front wheel. She shouted at the man in the car, "Hey! Watch it! I have the right of way here!"

The windows were tinted so much that she could barely see into them. What she could make out was a pale face with dark eyes peering at her through the tinted window. She blinked as she stared at him for a moment, temporarily stunned by the look of pure cold anger in those dark eyes, before he waved her on dismissively. Amber regained herself and glared back before walking her bike the rest of the way across the street.

The look had been so raw, so cold that it had disarmed her. It was as though she just saw the sort of look a victim sees on a murder's face just before he slices their throat. A sort of annoyed boredom crossed with murderous rage. Perhaps she had been a little rude, but not rude enough to warrant the look of loathing he had given her. She shook her head and rode her bike the rest of the way to the front of the school where she locked up her bike and went inside the school. She stopped when she saw the black car pull into the parking lot and take a spot next to an old truck. She didn't wait for the occupant to walk out of it. Instead, she walked into the school, calming herself down for the start of the day. The last thing she needed was to be unsettled by a possible sociopath among her peers on the first day of school.

It was then that she ran right into a pair of broad chests and strong arms. Two boys, identical to one another, grinning ear to ear as they helped her away from them. Both were covered in freckles and had bright red hair on their heads. Their brown eyes twinkled with mischief as they set her on her feet.

"Careful there!"

"We wouldn't want the new girl getting hurt!"

"Yeah, that would be bad!"

"Nah, seriously, we're here to help you!"

Amber eyed the pair and smiled faintly toward them. "Hello, I'm Amber Elric," she said.

"Fred and George Weasley," they said simultaneously and linked arms with one another, "Up to you to figure out which one is which!"

Amber giggled and rolled the sleeves of her jacket up her arms a bit. "All right, thank you for helping me up. If you don't mind I need to get my locker and combination before I go to my first class." They parted for her like the red sea and turned to watch her walk up the stairs to a new hallway. When she looked back both were still grinning up at her identically. She grinned and shook her head, laughing. She couldn't help herself.

When she finally reached her first class she found herself once more faced with the pair of red haired twins in the front of the class and smiling at her the same way they had when they had first seen her. She had also noticed that there were a few other students the resembled them in the school, most notably a girl a couple years younger than her. Just by her appearance alone Amber wondered if perhaps James and Lily's son Harry Potter would like the girl and plotted to get a photograph of him to give to the girl along with his email address for her.

The brothers waved to Amber before motioning to a seat behind them. Amber preferred being toward the back, but she wasn't about to miss sitting behind these boys. After all, they seemed to be the life of the entire school. If they had taken a shine to her then surely that might make the class more interesting. Although, the down side would likely be that she might actually learn anything from laughing too hard at the pair of them.

And she had been right. The pair continued to pass notes to her about this and that before both winked at her and began harassing the teacher.

"Mrs. Hardbrook!"

"We have a question!"

"Could we have your opinion on this?"

"It's about the story of video games actually…"

"And it's more of a bet we made with one another that you didn't know more than we did about consoles."

Mrs. Hardbrook, a rather stiff looking woman with her hair pulled back tightly and glasses perched on her nose, smiled faintly toward the pair. Clearly she had dealt with this before. "Given that this class is about Economics, I'm sure we could learn about which gaming consoles are the most expensive and why they are."

The pair chuckled together and as one spoke, "You're cool, ma'am!" This earned them a small smile from Mrs. Hardbrook before she walked behind her desk to the board and began doing just as she had said. It was wonderful to have a class where the teacher seemed prepared for a pair of rowdy boys trying to test her patience! Amber was definitely impressed.

After Economics and English, Amber went to lunch. She ran into the Weasley twins and went through the line with them before moving to their table with them. They sat with, apparently, their own siblings. Sitting down near her was the red haired, freckle faced girl she was still plotting on giving a photo of Harry to as well as his email address and on the other side of the table was a tall, thin boy with the same bright red hair and freckles as the rest of his family. "Hello," said Amber, smiling at him.

He looked up and smiled faintly. "Hi," he said, "I'm Ron Weasley."

"I'm Ginny," said the girl.

Amber nodded to them both and smiled broadly at them. "I'm Amber Elric. It's nice to meet you both. Your brothers here are in my Economics class."

Ginny grinned, her brown eyes twinkling like her older brothers'. "Fred and George are fun to be around, but don't let them use you for any of their plots. They like getting people in trouble."

Fred and George both looked at her aghast. "We do not!"

"Yeah! We're perfectly fine exploiting people without using them for plots," said the twin, whom Amber realized was Fred. It turned out that the loudest of the pair was Fred and the plotter for the pair was George. Ginny and Amber laughed while Ron grinned silently. A girl with fluffy brown hair passed and Amber blinked after her.

And so did Ron.

Ginny smirked. "It's Ron's girlfriend," she said.

"Is not!" snapped Ron, his ears turning red.

Amber chuckled and shook her head. As she did this she had the sudden feeling that someone or something was watching her. She turned and looked over her shoulder to a table where only five people sat. They looked as though they had not slept in ages, the circles under their eyes dark and their skin was oddly pale. Their eyes, however, were some of the most vivid colors Amber had ever seen. There was a young woman with very broad shoulders and a large bust, she had long, silvery blonde hair pulled back into a pair of loose ponytails that covered her ears somewhat. Her eyes were a bright, vivid blue. Next to her was a girl with long, black hair and her eyes were a vivid, pale gray. The black haired girl was much smaller boned than the blonde girl and wore all black clothing and gray make up on her lids, though this only seemed to accentuate the sleepless look of her.

There were three boys as well, two of which had their backs to Amber, but seemed oddly familiar. She saw the third was staring right at her, however. His eyes were dark, almost black, but they almost glowed with a strange blue light to them. His skin was as deathly pale as the rest of them, but, like the black haired girl, his groomed black hair only made him look even paler than the rest. His hair wasn't even styled normally, either. It was sort of longish and combed in such a fashion as to be almost stiff about it. His style of dress was just as stiff, with a white button up shirt and tie, his slacks clean and pressed and his shoes were nice dress shoes. Clearly, this boy either had a very strict mother, or he was incredibly out of synch with the rest of the world. Even worse, Amber recognized his face and the look of cold hatred as being from the man in the car that nearly ran into her.

As if as one, all of the kids at that one table turned to look at Amber. It was then that she saw the other two boys' faces, if only briefly: one looked similar to her father and the other looked almost exactly like her. Both had the most vivid yellow eyes she had ever seen outside of animals. Amber turned quickly away from them and looked to the twins who were giving her a strange expression. "What?" she asked.

"You interested in the local freaks?" asked George.

"I was nearly run over by the black haired boy there," said Amber, "This morning when I was riding my bicycle to school." Was it just her or could she still feel their eyes on her back, or maybe it was just the one boy's with the deep blue eyes.

"You look a lot like Ed over there," said Ron.

"Mmm, yeah, and his brother Al looks like you a little, too," said Ginny softly as she looked over.

Amber rubbed her face. Something wasn't right about those five and it bothered her greatly. Why did two of the boys look like her and her family? Why did that one boy look as though killing her would be a pleasant idea? "What are their names? And why did you call them the 'local freaks'?"

"Because they are. They don't show up when it's really sunny outside and they all tend to look like they need sleep," said Fred. "They're really weird."

"Fred and I are running a bet that they're really vampires or werewolves," said George, grinning. "I bet on werewolves."

"I bet on vampires," said Fred.

"Whatever they are, Tom Knight is the scariest of the pair," said Ginny, "I caught him mumbling something about killing everyone in the school one day. I tell you he's going to come to school one day and go Columbine on everyone."

Amber snorted and looked over for the third time. The kids at the table had all turned back to their lunch trays, although it seemed as though they had not touched their lunches at all. Amber frowned and turned back to her newfound friends in the Weasley children. "So, who are they again?"

"Well, they're all adopted into the Knight family, but Tom, the black haired fellow there, Avalon, the black haired girl, and Astra, the blondie, are all brother and sisters from early childhood. They were the first to be adopted back when they were kids by Mr. and Mrs. Knight and then the other two boys were adopted when they were about eleven and twelve. They're Ed and Al Bell," said Fred.

Amber nodded and looked to them, frowning faintly. Perhaps they were related to her in some fashion, by some distant line that her aunt had not told her about. If that was so Amber was certain her aunt and father would be thrilled to learn of these boys. And there was also the problem of the boys both sharing the names of her great-uncle and his brother, her great-grandfather. It was as though they had jumped out of the pages of her photo album!

The very next class Amber had was Government and Amber noticed that she was being spied by every pair of eyes in the classroom. At least, that's what it felt like for only about a minute. After a while, everyone just turned back to what they were doing except for one boy in the back of the classroom. There, she saw Tom Knight sitting back and eyeing her with that same cold and rather bored look on his face. When she realized that every seat was taken save for the one next to him she resigned herself to sit next to him and hope he didn't have any plans to kill anyone inside the classroom while she was there.

Setting her things down, she noticed that Tom Knight moved his desk as far away from her as possible. She raised an eyebrow and looked to him, frowning. "Is there a problem?" she asked.

"I don't like your perfume," he drawled, his accent clearly English for the most part.

"Sorry if you feel that way," she said, looking at him coolly, "But I'm afraid you'll have to live with it."

Tom snorted derisively before turning away from her. Amber wondered briefly if perhaps she should slap that nice nose of his into a different shape before he flicked those dark, deep blue eyes of his toward her. And was it her imagination or did they change from inky blue to bright, demonic red for a flitting second? She stared at him, shaken inside by the suddenness of those red eyes and moved her chair just a little away from him. Perhaps Fred and George were right about the Knights and Bells. Perhaps they were vampires or something. At the very least Tom Knight seemed as though he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Either way, clearly this was a boy who was used to frightening people into doing what he wanted of them. Therefore, Amber was going to have to make sure he didn't frighten her.

And that was how it started. The class started with the teacher talking about the branches of Government while Amber slowly inched her desk back into its original position. Tom, who didn't look at her once, didn't seem to notice this at all. In fact, it was as though she wasn't there. That didn't matter, because Amber was going to make sure he didn't intimidate her a second time, or was this the third time?

"If by moving closer to me you think you are making a point, let me assure you that the only point you are making to me is that your perfume means more to you than my sense of smell," said Tom in a very quiet voice.

Amber scowled at Tom wearily and wrote down her notes, moving her desk just a little closer to his. Tom turned and glared at Amber finally before raising his hand. "Mr. Turner, perhaps you could tell Miss Elric here to move her desk back? She is crowding me."

Amber, flushing bright red, moved her desk back immediately and sighed. She covered her face with her hand and attempted to hide in her desk somehow. "I trust I don't have to say anything," said Mr. Turner as he turned back to the front.

"No, you don't," muttered Amber softly. When she looked back at Tom again she saw the faintest, most irritating smirk curling his pale lips. She looked away and went back to writing her notes and tried to seem as engrossed in them as possible. The last thing she needed was to have to redo her notes because some creepy boy sitting next to her made her ready to stab a pencil in his dark eyes.


	3. Chapter Three

_A/N: it's 7:31 A.M. and I have little to nothing to do except read Twilight and snark the shit out of it with my red pen or write this. So I'll write this. Tomorrow my friend Amanda will come over and I'll be mostly relegated to using my laptop, which is fine I don't really care, but I'm really happy she's coming over. I love it when she comes over. ^^ Because most of my other friends have moved away. :(_

_Wow! MSWord does smilies!! HAHA! All right, so ya'll who always expect the best of the best from the genius mind that is me I'll be doing my best with this. After all, I'm making a point that if Meyer had half the brain power I do then she would be more successful and actually deserve it. In the mean time I'm going to keep the idea for these critters that the Knights and Bells are for here until I feel like using them later. Because I want to. The idea is too cool to leave to just some fanfic I did as a rebuttal to the piece of shit that is Twilight._

_Just a reminder to myself: the doctor told me to tell papa to make sure the cancer specialists know to make sure the port is free flowing and clear before using it._

**Chapter Three**

Hughes Elric smiled as his daughter went about unpacking a few more kitchen utensils and put them away. In a lot of ways she reminded him of her mother, his wife. In a lot of ways she also reminded him of his grandmother Winry as well. And then there was her appearance and her attitude at times reminded him of his grandmother's stories of her late husband Edward. He was a hot head and had a complex about how short he was and young looking he was, but he was a very sweet man once it came to Winry and his brother Alphonse.

"How was school, honey?" asked Hughes as he moved up to the counter in the kitchen and leaned against it. He grimaced when he noticed he was getting a little chubby from not being in the military any longer. That and he enjoyed the doughnuts he got at work.

Amber looked to her dad and smiled faintly. "It was all right. I made some friends pretty easily," she said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, apparently they're a part of a bigger family. The name is Weasley," said Amber.

"Weasley," said her dad softly, considering the name carefully, "Ah, I think I met Mr. Weasley today when I went to work. He apparently works downtown in the town council. He's a really nice man."

Amber smiled faintly and nodded. "Fred and George Weasley are twins and they met me first. I met their little brother Ron and little sister Ginny at lunch."

Hughes smiled and nodded toward his daughter before looking off, remembering. "I wish Lynda could be here to see you."

Amber didn't look to her father then. She knew he was remembering her mother and part of her wished he wouldn't because it always made them both very sad. Her mother had died suddenly in a car crash when Amber was a little girl. From that point on Hughes Elric had taken care of Amber with the help of her Aunt Rouge and Sirius. It had been hard, but they managed it together and that was the most important thing of all.

"Anything else interesting happen?" asked Hughes, smiling.

"Oh, no," said Amber quickly, "Not really. Well, there was this one boy who's a real jerk in one of my classes, but other than that nothing else."

"A boy? What's his name?" Hughes smirked faintly as he eyed his daughter.

Amber smirked faintly, trying to hide the smile that was fighting its way through. She knew why her dad was asking and still she spoke, "Tom Knight." She looked to him finally and smirked slightly at him. "You're not going to go looking into his police records or something to see if he's been a good boy, are you?"

"Oh, so he has a police record?" asked Hughes, grinning broadly at his daughter.

"Dad, he's just the local jerk. It's not like I can't take care of myself in this," said Amber, grinning and beginning to laugh. Hughes smiled and moved away from the counter and walked over to start cooking dinner. Amber watched his big strong back and smiled. "Dad, why is it your name is Hughes?"

Hughes turned slightly and looked over his shoulder. "Eh? You mean besides being named for my father?"

"Yes, besides that."

Hughes chuckled and poked at the chicken cooking in the cooking pan. He hummed a moment, thinking, before he spoke, "My grandfather, Edward was his name, had a friend in the British military named Maes Hughes. According to the story my mom told me that my dad told her was that Maes Hughes practically helped raise Edward when he first joined the military. He pulled him under his wing and all that. He was a really nice guy and then he died from a bullet to the head in battle. His wife and daughter were left alone without him. It struck Grandpa Ed to the core. Uncle Al's death struck the final blow in grandpa and Granny Winry had to help him recover. Unfortunately, he died not too long afterward."

Amber nodded and looked to the floor, thinking. She was wondering if she should tell her father about the two boys she saw at school that resembled her great-grandfather and great-uncle. "Dad," she asked finally after a few minutes of silence, "There are a couple of guys at school that are a part of the Knight family. They look a lot like you… and me."

That got Hughes attention. He turned slowly and looked to Amber, frowning slightly. "What do you mean?"

Amber shifted uncomfortably against the sink. "Nothing, probably just my imagination," she said quickly. "I only got a brief glance at them today at lunch before they went off with their siblings. According to the twins they're a family of all adopted children."

"Mmm, yes, I think I heard about these folks from Rouge. Since she's lived up here a long while, practically since Damien was about eight or nine, she's seen people come and go. I seem to recall her telling me when this one family moved in who called themselves Knight. Not too uncommon a name, really," said Hughes, "Well, she said that the dad, a Mr. Kevin Knight, and his wife, Benedikta Knight, came into town with a bunch of kids and started up a life there. The kids didn't come out too much until they were registered at the school. They've been here ever since."

"When was that?" asked Amber.

"Last year. Rouge says the kids are good and don't get into trouble, though really the entire family keeps to themselves. Mr. Knight's a doctor at the local hospital and he's supposed to be very nice to pretty well everyone." Hughes went silent for a moment as he took the chicken off the fire and put them on plates for the two of them. Then, he went about working on a rice pilaf for their chicken. "I suppose everyone has their reservations about new folks, but the only one I've heard Rouge say she doesn't trust is the black haired boy of the children. She said he's very cold to everyone equally."

"That would be Tom Knight," said Amber, grimacing slightly. "Cold and very rude and more than a little creepy."

"Well, don't let him get to you, all right?"

Amber smiled warmly at her father and nodded. "I'll try."

Hughes grinned at Amber and turned the fire on under the pot of water for the rice. Then, he walked over to Amber and pulled her into a hug. "You're a good girl, Ambs," he said softly, kissing the top of her head, "You just fly straight and do what you know to be right. When all else fails you've got me to back you up. Okay?"

Amber hugged her dad and nuzzled into his chest, feeling every bit a little girl inside as she did so. "All right, dad," she said.

* * *

Amber eyed the shiny black car in front of her with wary eyes. Did the guy simply wash his car and wax it every day until shined like it was brand new or did the Knight family get a family servant to do it. It seemed almost impossible that after a good rain like they had during the night the car should look completely spotless. It was obscene! It was as impeccable in its appearance as its master, who more than likely was in school already and she would be the late one if she didn't put her bike up and get inside.

Her shoes squeaked on the asphalt as she walked her bike to the front of the school. She locked up her bicycle and then walked into the main hallway where she heard more squeaking shoes from the moisture still on the ground. Mud was tracked onto the tile floors and no amount of wiping their feet on the floor mats had done any good at getting it off. The mats themselves were rendered useless by the onslaught of years of being caked with mud.

She walked to class quietly to find herself nearly rammed into by a pair of strong, well built chests belonging to the Weasley twins. They both grinned at her brightly and pulled her in without a word, setting her down behind them quickly. "First Economics with the new girl and then Biology with her! We're lucky!"

Amber would have laughed if she had not been so small against them. In comparison to the two boys she resembled a large, old fashioned doll that they could pick up without a problem and place her anywhere they wanted. Both boys, while not as tall as their brother Ron was proving to be, were still mountains compared to her small body. "H-HEY!" she cried out as they lifted her up and deposited her on her desk feet first.

"Gettin' rowdy with a girl isn't nice, y'know." Amber, Fred and George looked around to see the silvery blonde Knight girl walking in with the black haired girl. Avalon eyed them; her sharp, pale gray eyes looked eerily like animal eyes as she stared at them. Astra, on the other hand, looked almost frightening with her vivid, blue eyes. Avalon, once again, wore silvery, smoky eyeshadow around her eyes that made her pale gray eyes pop out almost unnecessarily. She wore all black, her sleeves extending well over her hands and her skirt extended to the middle of her calves. A pair of black boots covered the rest of her legs, which were thinner in comparison to her sister Astra who looked like she could toss a man by simply punching them. Astra, meanwhile, seemed all about color. While her sister Avalon was monochromatic, Astra had reddish pink on her eyelids; she wore a black sweater over a reddish shirt and blue jeans. Out of the pair, Astra seemed the most relaxed.

Looking between the pair of girls and the twins was an interesting mix. The boys wore what seemed to be handmade sweaters and hand-me-down jackets and jeans with little tears in them from the many times they had been worn by others. They looked fresh and clean, but otherwise not remarkable in their dress. However, they made up for that with their charming smiles and their remarkable personalities.

Fred grinned at the girls and bowed with a flourish like some gallant knight to a pair of princesses or noblewomen. "Ladies, we were giving the new girl a fond greeting!" he said in a pompous tone.

Astra laughed loudly. Avalon, meanwhile, looked as cold as her brother Tom and gazed at the twins with a very penetrating look. Already Amber was getting a feel for a few of the members of the Knight family. Astra seemed to be the friendly one, Avalon was the cold one and Tom was the serial killer in training. Amber could imagine Tom liked to tie down animals and torture them slowly until they died before burning their corpses to get rid of the evidence.

Astra shook her head and walked all the way in, slapping Fred good naturedly on his shoulder before taking a seat not far away from them, Avalon followed quickly behind her and kept as far away from them all as possible. Fred coughed and rubbed his shoulder, wincing slightly. "Hey, Astra," he called, "Might want to try out for baseball or something with that arm of yours. I think you broke my shoulder!"

"Wuss!" she called. "I did no such thing and you know it!" Amber recognized the accent in Astra's voice as being from her old home in Central Texas.

Fred laughed loudly, but continued to rub his shoulder with a slight wince. Amber frowned faintly at him. "She did hurt you, didn't she?" she said softly, trying not to call too much attention to this.

"Eh, she doesn't mean it," said Fred, smiling at Amber, "She's a nice girl, really. Avalon's fucking creepy, though, but I hear the only one she's genuinely nice to is Al and he's the nicest of them all."

Amber nodded and smiled faintly, sitting down behind Fred as she watched his muscles flex slightly under his shirt when he took off his blue-jean jacket and his handmade sweater. Both boys were indeed very well built under all those clothes and Amber had bit of a hard time not concentrating on this rather pleasant attribute about them.

Until **he** walked in.

Amber wasn't sure if he simply drew attention to himself without trying or if he had a genuine aura of complete nastiness to him, but every head turned when he walked in, though not in awe of him. While he was impressive to look at—very impressive—the look in his eyes of cold loathing toward everyone sort of ruined the impressive image. Like his sister Avalon his appearance was almost monochromatic. However, unlike Avalon, who was a little shorter than Astra with her boots on, he was an impressive height. Astra was very tall as well, far taller than most girls she had ever met, and built like a Valkyrie. Tom, however, was built like a tree. He was extremely tall—Lurch-like almost—but very thin. His chiseled features were very handsome, but were ruined by the perpetual coldness that never left his face.

Once again Amber marveled at the care with which he seemed to take pride in with his appearance. His hair was clean cut, though a little long, his shirt was neatly pressed and pitch black, his tie only visible by the shine coming off of it against the black background of his shirt, his trousers were neatly pressed and clean and his coat hung on him as though it were tailored to him. Everything about his appearance screamed "businessman"…

…or "mafia".

And the only seat available in the classroom was right next to Amber.

Amber groaned inwardly and looked away from the stiff image of Tom Knight as he walked over to her and set his books down on the table. He took his seat carefully and fully ignored her as though she were never there in the first place. Amber would have been fine with that had he been at someone else's table, but since this was Biology and he was her table partner this was going to prove far more difficult than it should have been.

"You lightened up on your perfume, I see," said Tom softly. His voice wasn't very low, but it had the effect of something she had never really experienced before. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end upon hearing it. What the hell was wrong with her?!

"I didn't wear that much to begin with," muttered Amber, shooting him a cold glare.

"Hmmph." Tom snorted derisively and pulled out a sheet of paper, writing notes on it as though to ignore her once more. When he spoke again her nerves twitched once more in an almost convulsive fashion. "You also cleaned your appearance better today than yesterday," he said.

Amber rubbed her arm to make the hair lie flat again as she eyed him warily. "I just moved in over the weekend, you know. It's not like my lifestyle has completely recovered from it."

"That's more than I can say for some people here," said Tom.

"Are you naturally rude or do you do this as a hobby?"

Tom flicked his deep blue eyes toward her and smirked ever so faintly, the effect maximizing his handsome appearance, or was it because his eyes looked, for a brief glimmer of a moment, as though they warmed a little inside at her retort. However warmly he appeared to have looked to her the cold, icy wall that seemed to permanently separate him from everyone else descended once more as he looked away. "Naturally," he said, "And as a hobby."

"Touché."

Amber looked to Astra and Avalon and noticed Astra eyeing Tom with the same wariness that Amber felt inside. It was as though she knew Tom might do something any moment now and she was waiting for it to happen so she could stop it. Her unnatural blue eyes pierced right into the back of his head as though to say in what seemed to be her typical low voice, "Watch it, buddy, or I'll put two in your ten spot."

Avalon, on the other hand, was staring directly at her with those eerie gray eyes of hers. Her deathly pale face had an almost ethereal glow to it as she gazed at Amber, making her look otherworldly. Indeed, all three had a similar look to their skin. It was as though they didn't really belong among the rest of them. The only problems with that theory were that they were among the unwashed masses, they were real and Astra seemed like she was the most human of the family. Of course, Amber had yet to meet their mother and father, but she could assume that they were probably both as equally ethereal as their adopted children.

When the teacher arrived in the classroom and began teaching Amber couldn't help but notice that even Tom's nails were as manicured as the rest of him. His fingers were pale and long, as though he had played piano for years. Or they could be the result of him "practicing" surgery on unwilling, small, pets. When he reached up with one of his hands and touched his fingers to his mouth as he was concentrating, rubbing his index and middle finger along his lower lip in smooth motions, Amber found herself transfixed by the gesture. Normally she didn't stare so much at a boy, even if he was as handsome as Tom clearly was, so when she found herself staring at Tom and wondering what those fingers felt like she mentally shook herself rather violently and dove into her notes.

What illness had taken hold of her? Seriously, she should never have been so affected by him as she was right them. It was as though he exuded sex from every pore without trying and it disturbed her. Even when he was simply touching his lip with those long fingers of his, or ruffling his black hair with them, she found herself staring at him and wondering what it would be like to touch his hair or to touch his lips. Both looked equally soft.

When the class was over so was the torture of having Tom Knight next to her. She sprinted from the classroom without delay and headed right for the doors. She didn't even care that it was misting outside, she needed air and she needed it desperately. She panted slightly as she leaned against the brick wall of the school and closed her eyes to the cloudy sky, letting her breath come out in puffs of smoke in the chilled air, groaning at herself.

"God, what is wrong with me?" she said. "Did I do something to you to deserve this punishment or is this just par for course?"

It was then that she heard a pair of voices not far off, in a sort of darkened alcove nearby where the side doors to the school were covered from practically everything. There, she saw Ed and Al Bell talking to one another. They were dressed similarly to Astra; wearing hoodies with the hoods up and jeans and sneakers, but their skin was as ethereal as the rest of their siblings. Ed was shorter than Al, his blonde hair lighter than his brother's and very long. It was pulled back into a ponytail at the back of his head and part of it draped over his shoulder from inside the hood of his blood red, hooded, sweatshirt. Al, however, wore a deep gray hooded sweatshirt and was broader across his shoulders and chest than Ed was.

"I'm getting tired of hiding like this, Al," said Ed in an impatient tone.

"Brother, you would think after this long you would learn some patience. At least keep it up until the newness wears off, all right?" said Al, smiling faintly.

Amber frowned and hid behind the wall, peeking around the corner to watch them. Indeed, they were the spitting image of her great-grandfather and her great-uncle right down to their very core. The only difference was that both were wearing modern clothing. "And what about classes, huh? The teachers will start wondering why we're skipping," said Ed.

"I thought you hated them," asked Al, smirking very faintly, almost deviously.

"I do!" Ed grunted and stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets before looking off with those vivid yellow eyes of his. "This school treats me like I'm an idiot," he said, his English accent coming out more, "I wish we had never been pulled into this ridiculous, barmy family."

There was a loud crunch as Tom made his appearance, walking over toward Ed and Al. The blonde haired pair looked toward him so fast that Amber had to hide quickly or else all three would see her. As quickly as she could she jogged off to the farthest side entrance away from the three and entered quietly. There would be other days of spying, but first she had to process what she had seen of the pair. How could two dead men who she **knew** could not be alive and looking as young as they had when they had died be walking around her new school?


	4. Chapter Four

_A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer, however much she doesn't deserve the fame she has received for being made of complete fail in writing. The Harry Potter characters belong to Ms. J.K. Rowling, may she forever write wonderful things for everyone to read. Fullmetal Alchemist and its characters belong to Ms. Hiromu Arakawa, and may she forever enjoy over the top B-movies and incorporating their B-movie hilarity into her work. _

_May common sense reign supreme over the internet. _

**Chapter Four**

"Edward, Alphonse," said a soft male tenor, the sound of leaves crunching underfoot filtered through the air as someone walked up to the pair of young men. Both young men were blonde, one with short hair styled in an almost 1940s cut and the other, paler haired young man had his in a ponytail.

Amber watched as a very tall young man with black hair and dark blue eyed walked up to them. He smiled without showing any real emotion behind it and pulled on his black leather gloves. Amber watched it all inside her mind, though she hardly knew why.

"What do you want," said Edward, the longer haired young man.

"You both are doing so well with hiding out, but I'm afraid people might become even more suspicious if you do not come back," said the black haired young man named Tom. "After all, no one really notices."

"Bollocks," grunted Edward, "And why the bloody hell should we listen to you?"

"Because I'm the smart one, remember?" Tom smirked faintly and spread his hands out from him to make himself appear innocent. "You know, you should remember not to use that accent, Edward."

"Fuck off," said Edward; he glared dangerously at Tom, though Tom hardly appeared to care.

"Tom, stop trying to pick a fight with my brother," said the young man known as Alphonse, "It'll do you no good anyway. Mr. Knight took us in, right? We should respect his rules."

"I used to be a dad and a husband, a fucking soldier and I've been reduced to this," growled Edward. "And you, Al… what have we been reduced to? We're children all over again."

"You do realize we are being watched, correct, my dear fellows?" said Tom, smiling unpleasantly toward the pair of brothers. Amber gasped as they both looked to her, but the most penetrating was Edward's; his bright yellow animal like eyes pierced into hers and all she could do was stare back at them.

Amber shot up in her bed, covered in a cold sweat. She gasped and panted for breath as she stared at her sheets covering her legs. What had she just dreamt? What sort of secret was being kept from her? Why was her great-grandfather and great-uncle in her dream and why had they not actually died?

The dream was rapidly fading inside her mind as she leaned forward and held her head. Ever since that day when she saw the three conspirators hiding out, Tom, Ed and Al, she had been having dreams of seeing their conversation as though she had stayed to listen in. What was the matter with her? An even better question, though: what was going on? The dead were supposed to stay dead not come back to life!

She shivered and pulled her comforter up around her shoulders before looking out the window. Snow was on the ground and still falling in the air above. She also saw footprints in the snow outside her house. Her dad wasn't awake yet, she knew that, and he had not left the house in the middle of the night either, so who had come to her house so early in the morning?

Amber quickly got dressed and pulled her coat and gloves on quickly before walking out while winding an ultra long, striped scarf around her neck. She kneeled down slowly to look at the tracks in the fresh snow and frowned faintly. The tracks were smallish, as though they were made by either a twelve or thirteen year old boy or a woman's feet. She followed them along and found, to her surprise, a black silk bow on the ground and some torn lace on the small picket fence around the front of their house. Whoever had come in had worn something relatively fancy and ripped their skirt on the side of the fence when walking through.

Amber looked down the street in both directions and found no tire marks on the ground. The footprints ended as though the person who came to her house had just appeared there on the spot. She pocketed the lace and the bow and walked back inside.

* * *

"You look tired," said Ginny at lunch.

"I am," said Amber, yawning behind her hand. "I had a really weird dream this morning that woke me up early and I have trouble going back to sleep when I wake up sometimes."

"Don't let Mr. Bender catch you yawning," said George, grinning slightly at Amber.

Amber glanced at him tiredly and then looked back to her half eaten lunch. Several people were walking outside after they finished eating to join in what was proving to be the biggest snow ball fight she had ever seen. Fred had already run out the doors with Ron in tow and was hit right in the face with a ball of slush.

Ginny pulled her gloves on and grinned at Amber, holding her hand out to her. "Come on! We don't have much time left before the bell rings for the end of lunch. Let's go beat my brothers!"

Amber didn't have to be told twice. She gathered her stuff up and jogged outside with Ginny until they found Ron, George and Fred all defending themselves with snow from other boys. Fred and George tag teamed as they took turns on one side and then the other before both sides were hunkered down and laughing. Amber took her opportunity and, in mid-walk, scooped up a bunch of snow, packed it together and threw it as hard as she could a Fred's face.

Fred was thrown backward slightly from the hit. He laughed as he wiped his stinging face and wiped his eyes to see who it was who had thrown the snowball at him. Amber waved at him, smiling cutely all the while as Ginny laughed loudly. Fred grinned and threw a snowball at them both, watching them scatter while squealing and laughing at him. "We're the kings of this yard!"

"HAH! EAT SNOW!" shouted Amber as she lobbed a large snowball at him. He almost didn't move away fast enough and part of his coat was hit. The second one landed, however, on his head. He fell face first into the snow as Ron and George laughed over him. He grinned and pulled himself from the snow, wiping off his reddened face.

The bell rang all too soon and everyone gathered up their backpacks and headed indoors. Amber took her time enjoying the steam of her breath puffing in front of her, the chill in the air, the snow on the ground and the battle ground of the snowball arena. She stopped, however, when she noticed one person staring at her from across the grounds, his dark blue eyes staring right at her. For a split second it seemed to her that they turned red before she blinked and rubbed her eyes. She must still be seeing things.

And why did she feel as though he was watching her as she walked back into the school? The eerie feeling of being watched didn't leave her until she reached her classroom, also. She wondered if she should make sure she kept something sharp and pointy in her bag should she need to defend herself from the likes of Tom Knight, serial killer in training. She decided it wouldn't be too terrible an idea and decided the next time she was able she would get a broken ruler from the trashcan when no one was watching and stash it inside her backpack.

She saw Avalon sitting by herself, a few bits of snow melting on her otherwise immaculately dressed shoulders; obviously Astra had not arrived yet. Avalon, as Amber noticed, was wearing a very frilly style of dress in black with black lace ruffles and black silk bows just like what Amber had found on her border fence in her front yard. Behind her was a long black coat done in a style reminiscent of the Victorian era that might as well have been a dress all on its own. Amber seemed to recall the style was called "Lolita", though she couldn't be certain.

There was a commotion outside and walked out to see what was going on. Fred and George picked her up and put her on their shoulders to help her look over the group of much taller students gathered in a circle and cheering on two people in the middle. Tom Knight had a black eye and blood oozing from his mouth, his hair was mussed and his too-perfectly pressed shirt was torn. Across from him was Astra Knight and she hand a split lip and a bruise on her cheek. She swung and Tom tried to move out of the way, but was caught in the stomach by her other fist. He went down clutching his stomach, coughing for breath. Amber shouted at them as loud as she could, "HEY! STOP FIGHTING!"

The teachers came out and broke up the crowd almost immediately after she shouted what she had. Fred and George hurriedly pulled her down as two teachers stood between Tom and Astra. Astra glared at Tom and looked like she could hit him again, but shook her head and fixed her black hooded sweater and black coat before picking up her bag. "Sorry, sorry," she said to the teacher, "I'll apologize to him later. Yeah, I know you have to call mom and dad. I'm sorry to have caused trouble for ya'll."

Tom straightened his tie and pulled his jacket and coat on as she spoke to the teachers. Amber watched as the teacher dealing with Tom said, "Mr. Knight, you know fighting is a punishable offense. I'll have to contact your parents and tell them about this. What caused this fight to start to begin with?"

"I don't know, honestly. What can one expect from a self-righteous cow as that girl, after all," he said. "Aren't Texans supposed to all be insane? Perhaps father should look into her sanity." Once more Amber noticed his accent was more English than New England. Just like in her dream his accent was a stiff, cultured English accent that really didn't betray too much of where exactly he was from.

"That's enough," said the principal, glaring at Tom. Then, he looked to Astra and sighed. "You should know better, too, Miss Knight."

"Yeah, I know," said Astra, looking away.

Amber was jostled away by Fred and George back into the classroom as the pair were talked to by the principal. She sat down where she usually sat behind Fred and George and looked to the back of the classroom. There, she saw Ed and Al sitting together at a table. Fred and George turned to Amber and grinned at her slightly. "So what do you two think happened to cause a fight, huh?" asked Amber.

"Dunno, but it probably wasn't something very nice he said to her. Astra's hard to piss off usually. Well, sort of. She doesn't simply go about hitting people just because they make fun of her. She's got a pretty thick skin for insults usually," said George.

"Yeah, I overheard her say that she used to be called all sorts of bad names when she was younger," said Fred. "I can see why, too. She's pretty big. A bit chubby, too."

Amber rolled her eyes. "Being big and chubby isn't a bad thing."

The pair chuckled at her. "Yeah, we know," said George.

"Not too bad on the eyes, either. Especially with those boobs of hers," said Fred, chuckling. Amber coughed and leaned forward to hide her serious lack of chest. Fred seemed to notice this and the tops of his ears went a little pink as he grinned broadly at Amber. "Hey, that doesn't mean a girl with none up top isn't hot, too, you know," he said, "I like girls period. Be they flat or be they chubby, be they short or be they tall."

"We just like girls because girls are the best of all," said George, grinning. Amber giggled and leaned back again, forgetting her small chest in that moment.

Astra walked in finally and sat down next to Avalon, pulling her coat off and pulling her hood up to cover her bruised face and, for the briefest moment, what looked like tears fell down her cheeks before she wiped them away. However, if that had been a tear she must have burst a blood vessel in her eye because the tear Amber had seen streaking her cheek was pinkish in color. Or, maybe it was from the eye make-up Astra wore that gave it the pinkish color?

Edward in the back of the room stared at Astra's back with what looked like genuine sympathy before it changed to absolute hatred as Tom walked into the classroom, as cool and calm as he ever was. Amber was struck by it so much that it was almost jarring with its intensity. Amber knew it was hard to keep everyone happy in a family, but shouldn't siblings, even if they are adopted from different families, stick together instead of fighting?

Tom sat next to Amber and she found herself unable to look away for him as he straightened his black hair with his long, white fingers. His black eye, which Amber could have sworn had been darker in the hallway, looked a lot less severe in the classroom. In fact, it looked like Astra had only given him a light tap compared to what looked like she was giving him in the hallway. Did he somehow heal faster than any human possible? The thought made Amber incredibly uncomfortable and forced her to look elsewhere as he turned to look her in the eyes.

"Enjoying the view?" he said, his voice causing a shiver to roll lazily up her spine. She moved her chair away from him and pulled her paper out. He simply smirked faintly toward her before doing the same. "That damned fat cow made a mess of my clothes," he muttered.

"Probably for good reason." Amber couldn't keep herself from speaking. She looked at him to see that he was gazing at her through those black lashes of his.

"Really?" he said, his voice dropping a little more. "And why would you say that, Miss Elric?" He seemed to pay particular attention to her last name, as though he had some private joke inside his head. The curve of his lips was provocative and that bothered Amber even more than she could have ever imagined before.

"Class is beginning," she said quickly and turned away.

Tom snorted and turned away, looking up at the board. He chuckled to himself out of the corner of her vision as he enjoyed the private joke inside his head. In that moment she instantly understood exactly why Ed and Astra seemed to dislike Tom so much. He was a total asshole.

When Biology finished Amber walked out swiftly to get to her locker, but once more she felt someone watching her as though she was some sort of herd animal being stalked by a predator. She turned to look behind her and found those dark eyes of Tom Knight staring right at her from across the courtyard. It was unreal how she seemed able to pin point his figure from the crowd of students moving around him. It seemed unreal that she couldn't look away. What spell was it that he held over her? She couldn't understand it at all.

After school ended, Amber went out to retrieve her bicycle from the bicycle stand. The students leaving were starting up smaller snow ball fights than what had happened at lunch, about two or three students taking turns hitting each other with snow while everyone else wandered to the school buses, cars and bicycles. She also saw that Fred, George, Ron and Ginny were leaving together and taking a car together. She watched as Fred and George got into the front seats of their old Ford car as Ron and Ginny seated themselves into the back seats.

Her attention then moved to Tom Knight heading out the doors with Astra, Ed, Al and Avalon behind him. Al and Avalon were walking with their arms linked, like an old fashioned, proper couple. Once more Amber noticed that Avalon's style of dress coincided with the silk bow and lace she found on the small, decorative picket fence around her front yard. Astra and Ed, however, walked with their hands jammed into their pockets, neither one exactly acknowledging each other.

She pulled her bicycle from the rack and walked along the sidewalk with it as she watched Tom Knight walk to the black car she saw that first day, as immaculate as he was, and the other four go to a deep blue car with the same tinted windows that Tom's car had. Astra got into the driver's seat as Ed looked a little dubious about getting in. Al opened up one side of the car for Avalon and allowed her to seat herself before moving to the other side and getting in. Al and Avalon's little mannerisms with one another were very strange and yet not so. Clearly either Mr. and Mrs. Knight had brought up Avalon and then later Al to be a proper lady and gentleman or they had, as Amber was often musing, come from another time period entirely. The thought was not too unlikely given that he and his brother resembled her great-uncle and great-grandfather.

She watched as the two cars pulled out separately and left out the student parking lot driveway. When they finally disappeared down the road she got on her bicycle and left. The Knights and Bells seemed to have a lot of money for themselves. Amber knew that Mr. Knight was a physician, but even physician families didn't have as much money as Tom and Avalon Knight seemed to flaunt around in their expensive, though very deceptively simple, clothing. Avalon's dress and overdress alone would cost a pretty penny because there weren't very many "Lolita" dress shops around in America. It was a Japanese style, after all. That meant Avalon would have to either get hers custom made from overseas or she got them from a very reliable source in America.

And Tom's suits. Tom seemed to never be unclean or unshaven. It was as though he disliked looking even remotely like any other man. Given his rather immaculate appearance one might think he was homosexual, but Amber guessed, just judging on his horrible personality alone, that he just disliked looking even remotely human. Tom seemed to be the sort of man who would shell out money as much as he could if it would mean he would not have to be associated with the likes of collective human mass around him. Thus, he wore what looked like finely tailored suits with silk ties and a long expensive overcoat. Even his car was expensive in appearance while the other four drove something a little more modest.

Ed, Al and Astra also dressed in a more modest fashion than Tom or Avalon. Ed wore T-shirts and jeans, a hooded sweatshirt in red, and sneakers. His hair was often pulled back in a ponytail, like a girl, but the look of him was anything but girly. Al wore similar and often chose to wear Earth and metal tones rather than Ed's blood red and black. Astra, meanwhile, wore reds, pinks, blues, greens, purples, and that long, black, hooded sweater with too-long sleeves that ended at her knuckles. The most expensive things on them were perhaps an mp3 player, phone, or jewelry. Even those seemed more modest. It was as though they deliberately didn't want to be noticed while Avalon and Tom simply didn't care.

All this added up to some strange and yet not so strange conclusions. Amber was beginning to think Fred and George weren't too off the mark in regards to whom or what the Knights and Bells were. And then there was Avalon and Al who were very obviously a couple by their mannerisms and the fact that Fred and George both said she was only nice to Al. One usually become a couple with their sibling, but Amber supposed that since they were all adopted anyway and Ed and Al were adopted much sooner than the rest and kept their original name that this was probably all right with the parents. While it was unusual Amber didn't really have a problem so long as it was consensual between the parents taking care of them and the pair in question. After all, it wasn't any of her business what their home life was like, though she did know that people probably talked a fair bit about that bit. Even in a big city like where Amber came from such a thing would still seem scandalous.

The foot prints in Amber's yard had been snowed over and her father's footprints could be seen walking up to the front door, his police cruiser parked out front. She put up her bicycle and called out to her father, "Dad! I'm home! How was work?"

Hughes leaned backward to look around the corner of the living room to see her and then moved back. "Amber, I'm going to ask you to do something for me. It seems there have been a lot of really nasty animal attacks around her lately, so I want you to be very careful about riding your bicycle to school, all right?"

Amber blinked. "Animal attacks?"

"Yeah," said Hughes, "Like a pack of wolves came through and ripped everything up. There was a body found on the outskirts of town today. An older fellow by the name of Jimmy Cook… he had his throat ripped out and pieces of him were missing."

Amber frowned deeply, for once a little worried. "Yeah, I'll be careful going to and from school, dad," she said, "And you be careful, too."

Hughes smiled at her. "No worries, I'm a police officer and a marine after all," he said, grinning like Fred and George often did, "I know a hundred ways of killing with my bare hands alone!"

Amber rolled her eyes and nodded. "Just be careful, all right?"

Hughes nodded and pulled his tie off. "All right, Ambs," he said and moved closer to her. He kissed her forehead and walked off to get out of his police uniform. "I'll make dinner, so just go ahead and do your homework."

"All right, dad."


	5. Chapter Five

_A/N: my mom came over yesterday and gave me presents from my grandma Deanna and grandpa Ed as well from herself. I'm currently wearing one of the Asian printed T-shirts she got me. She gave me about four of these things. My grandma Deanna and grandpa Ed both gave me a necklace with small diamonds, relatively small citrines and a big lemon citrine set in 14k white gold. o.o it's weird and cool getting these sorts of presents._

_Anyway, yeah Astra's wearing my new favorite sweater, because I absolutely adore it. Amanda gave it to me for Christmas. ^^ Twilight's soundtrack should not have good music on it, but it does. =w=; _

**Chapter Five**

"What are you doing, Tom," said the tall, silvery blonde girl named Astra. Her voice was gruff and she looked about ready to pounce on Tom depending on his answer.

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Tom, his expression lifeless, but amused by Astra.

"I mean what you've been doing," said Astra, leaning closer to him and whispering. Her eyes went from the unnatural, vivid blue to demonic red for an instant as she glared at Tom dangerously.

Tom snorted down at her, towering over her despite the fact that she was nearly six feet tall herself. He leaned closer to her, challengingly, and his own eyes changed, though they stayed that way while he spoke to her. "Do not try to intimidate me, you fat cow. You do not have any power over me nor do you need to be inquiring into my own activities." His eyes went back to their vivid, deep, dark blue as he moved away from her. "Understand?"

Astra glared at him calmly. Of course she didn't react too well, but she didn't attack him either. Amber watched as though she were right next to them, though she knew she had never been there quite like this. "Leave Amber alone," she said finally.

Tom flicked his eyes toward her as he was turning and stopped in mid-step, smirking in a way that made Amber's blood run cold. When he spoke he spoke so softly that, although Amber was standing right next to them or seemed to be at least, she barely heard him say, "Or else what, you stupid, fat whore? Will you kill me right here in the middle of the hallway? In front of everyone? I know you fancy dear Edward, but isn't this going a bit far for the stunted, little rat? Planning on telling him how you protected her, Astra, so that you might get in closer with him? Hmm? Oh, yes, I know how you think, cow, and I know deep down inside you just want to do every little thing for him so he can out and out forget his little wife that he left all alone."

One moment Amber saw Tom talking to Astra and insulting her and Edward both, the next she saw a spray of blood come from Tom as Astra punched him square on the jaw. She kept hitting him and hitting him until he finally managed to shove her off. She was like a wild animal coming at Tom, vivid eyes glaring and only wanting to see Tom's blood spilt over the linoleum floor. A crowd of kids had formed and the berserker rage in Astra's eyes left almost immediately, now all she had left was to drop Tom to the ground to keep him from furthering the fight.

Amber watched as she was lifted up in front of her, a perfect double of herself, on the shoulders of both Fred and George so she could see the fight better. Astra made a run for Tom, but he blocked her first punch, only to miss the second one come up into his stomach with a sickening crunch as his ribs broke from the impact.

"You're in danger, Amber," said a soft voice near her ear. It was relatively low, but not like Astra's tone. Amber looked around to see who had been speaking and found no one.

Amber woke up and looked around her room. She saw her ceiling and the light from her bedroom window and realized she was not at school. She got out of bed slowly and looked to her clock. It was still an hour before she needed to get up, but since she was awake she felt she might as well get up totally.

The snow had not lifted its hold on the ground, though some had melted and became ice on the leaves of the trees outside and on the road outside. If Austin had been blanketed in snow and ice, like Forks was, Austin would be shut down for the next day or two while the snow lasted and road crews went out to put sand on the bridges and roads. Seeing this much snow was unusual to Amber and seeing it last for this long was even more unusual to her. Still, there had to be something said for riding a bicycle out on the frozen roads and sidewalks: you had less of a chance to get into a wreck if you were careful with riding.

Those same footprints were in the newly fallen snow on the ground. Her father was awake, but drinking his coffee downstairs. Surely they were his. She pulled on her bathrobe and slippers to sneak out the door to take a closer look when she stopped and eyed the window. For the briefest moment she swore she saw someone standing across the street, but they were gone now. Perhaps she was just getting paranoid what with the dream she just woke up from. The dream itself was fading away and she couldn't recall what was in it other than a feeling of urgency. It was the same feeling one had when walking alone in a dark alley or walking in the woods at night.

So, Amber stayed up in her room until her dad left for work in his police cruiser. She went down to make herself breakfast and watch television. There were some early morning cartoons on, but nothing could really beat the cartoons she used to watch when she was really little. She finished eating breakfast quickly and went back up to her room to change for school and get ready to leave.

Outside it was colder than yesterday. She pulled her extra long, striped scarf around her neck and pulled her cap down over the tops of her ears before checking her traction on the ice and snow covered sidewalk. She grunted when she slipped slightly on the ice and wondered if perhaps she should just put her bicycle away and walk to school. It wasn't too terrible a walk. As Amber put the bicycle away she once again had the feeling of being watched from across the street. She shivered and looked around, her breath coming out in white puffs in front of her mouth as she looked across the street.

A deep blue car with tinted windows was across the street. She frowned and locked up her bicycle before walking toward the car. It was the same car the Bells and Knights drove around. She stopped when an old blue Ford drove up to her and stopped. The window rolled down as Fred grinned at her broadly. "Need a ride, Ambs?" asked Fred.

"Yeah, it's too snowy and icy to ride your bike," said Ginny from the backseat.

Amber noticed they had snow chains on their tires and smiled faintly. At least they were properly prepared unlike she was. She laughed to herself and got into the backseat next to Ginny before Fred drove off. Ginny grinned at Amber. "I see you're looking good this morning. Have a good rest?"

"Not really, but I don't let that bother me," said Amber quickly. Ginny blinked at her in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

Amber hesitated on answering, thinking about what she should say. After all, she didn't really wholly remember exactly what it was she had dreamt. As the car moved along the street Amber noted that the deep blue car finally started up and moved along behind them. She frowned faintly. Why were the others watching her when Tom was the creepy one? He didn't seem the type to steal the others' car to disguise himself.

"Amber?" asked George.

"Oh, sorry, George," said Amber, "Um, I've been having some very strange dreams is all. I always end up waking up earlier than I need to. It's no problem, really."

"Maybe it's just being in a new place that's doing that," said Ron, "I know I have a problem sleeping when we go on trips."

Amber nodded and looked behind them again to see the deep blue car following them to school. Ginny looked around and raised a fair eyebrow. "Hey, Fred. It looks like we've got the four Knights and Bells behind us."

"Yeah, I've been watching them, Gin," said Fred, "Since they're going to school as well I don't think there's anything wrong with them doing that."

"They came from my street," said Amber.

"Then, that may be something to worry about. We knew where you lived because we saw you go home once," said George.

"Maybe I should worry more about you," said Amber, smirking at the twins. George laughed as the tips of Fred's ears went red and he joined his brother in their laughter.

"You're a quick one, aren't you," said Fred, grinning to himself, though Amber could see it in his reflection in the rearview mirror.

"I try," said Amber, smiling.

"Ooh?" Ginny grinned deviously. "Fred, you fancy Amber, don't you."

"Hey, Gin, what about that guy you've been dating for the past couple of days, huh?" said Fred quickly. "Maybe I should give him some of your baby pictures, eh?"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Keep it up and I will," said Fred in a mocking, sing-song voice.

Ginny puffed her cheeks up slightly and leaned back against the seat, looking to Amber with a wink. Amber grinned and shook her head, leaning back herself. When they reached the parking lot they got out slowly to avoid slipping on the ice patches on the road. Ron fair sprinted over the ice to aid the frizzy haired girl Amber had seen him eyeing previously. Ginny, Fred and George laughed together as though at some private joke.

"What's funny?" asked Amber, smiling.

"That girl," said Ginny, "She's a friend of mine and Ron likes her a lot. Her name's Hermione Granger, if you want to know. She's really nice, though a bit bossy at times. Really smart, too! She's in Ron's grade."

"Ron likes to deny he likes her, but all arrows point north," said George.

Amber started laughing and looked to him practically stumbling over himself to get next to Hermione Granger. It was very sweet of him to want to help her over the ice, even though he was having trouble himself. Hermione even seemed to be laughing as well as they both slipped and fell into the grass. Amber thought about how nice they seemed to be with one another and wondered about herself one day. She wasn't in a rush to have a boyfriend, but she sometimes wondered if she were ever meant to have one.

A shiver went up her spine as she became acutely aware of a pair of dark eyes gazing at her back. She turned slightly, hesitantly, to look over her shoulder. She saw him standing there, his coat pulled tight around him and looking every bit a Mafioso. The look was somewhat ruined, however, when she noticed the deep, forest green scarf round his neck. It was clearly handmade, though not very well done. A few strings of yarn could be seen sticking out in places, but the whole thing held together well enough. His shiny, black hair was dusted lightly with flecks of snow and his relatively broad shoulders were as decorated as his hair. He looked like something straight out of a movie. How much more unnaturally perfect could this guy make himself appear?!

Ed and Al appeared behind him, both wearing handmade scarves done in a similar fashion to Tom's green on. Ed sported a red scarf and Al sported a deep gold colored one. Astra walked behind them with a red and gold striped one that looked a little better, though not by much, and Avalon had a lavender one wrapped around her neck. Avalon moved up beside Al and hooked her arm with his in one smooth move that seemed as though they had been doing this for far too long. Once more Avalon wore the expensive, black, "Lolita" garb complete with a black lace parasol on her shoulder sheltering her from the sun and snow falling.

"Ambs? Hey, school will start without you, you know," said Fred, interrupting her. She looked back to his face and blushed faintly. His brown eyes twinkled at her and Amber found herself realizing that he really did look very handsome with that smile on his face.

"I'm fine, Fred," she said quickly, "Hey, um, want to walk me to my locker?"

Fred's smile broadened until Amber was certain that his face would break from it. She giggled and reveled in the new expression of pure joy on his handsome face. "Yeah, I'd like to do that, Ambs."

Amber grinned and took his arm like Avalon and Al did daily and watched as his cheeks went red from not just the cold air. He was beginning to turn the same color as his red hair and she liked that very much. He was cute like that and it made her want to tease him more. They walked arm-in-arm like that all the way into the school where she led Fred all the way to her locker. They stopped in front of it and blushed heavily as they both chuckled at themselves. He released her and let her go to her locker as Amber looked back at him with her gold colored eyes. "Thank you, Fred," she said, "I'll see you in class later."

Fred grinned and nodded toward Amber. "Same for you, Ambs," he said. He didn't move away immediately and Amber was sort of glad for it. She liked his presence there. He was tall and broad shouldered, his freckles were cute and his smile was bright, his eyes twinkled when he was impish and his hair fluttered sometimes when there was breeze. She had been paying entirely too much attention to the creepy, unnatural looking Knights and Bells and completely lost sight of the more human, down-to-earth boys around her. Both of the twins held the same pleasant appearance. Both looked like they could stand up for themselves as well as those around them.

Fred's somewhat shy appearance now was a cute change and she noticed it was only because he was away from his brothers and sister, though she had of course only seen this change once. She assumed this was Fred's behavior around a girl he really liked when he was relatively alone with her. When he finally moved away from her and walked away she heard him yelp in joy and saw him jump up and hit a sign hanging from the ceiling. "YES!!" he shouted at the top of his lungs for all to hear.

Amber laughed loudly and went back to her locker, shaking her head. She heard other kids around her laughing as well and that made the previous shiver up her spine disappear. It returned, however, as she was rifling through her locker. She looked over her shoulder to look for those dark eyes of Tom Knight, but ended up only seeing the freakishly pale gray eyes of Avalon staring at her. Amber frowned faintly and turned back around to finish putting her things into her bag and slinging her backpack over her shoulder when she felt the shiver up her spine once again.

"You're in the way, you know."

Amber yelped in surprise and promptly lost her bag to the floor. Avalon was right behind her. How had she moved up behind her without a sound? The woman was like a phantom! Amber gathered her bag up from the floor and fixed the arrangement of the books inside it before acknowledging Avalon. "Sorry, what was that?"

"You," said Avalon slowly, "Are in… the way…"

Amber eyed Avalon for a moment. She was taller than Amber, but she also wore a pair of heeled shoes with little silk bows on them and straps across her feet. "You could ask me to move, you know, instead of coming up behind me and scaring the bejeezus out of me," snapped Amber.

Avalon didn't do or say much of anything. She just kept looking at her expectantly. Amber rolled her eyes and moved away for Avalon. Avalon walked past her, though moved away from her when Amber started to close her own locker and lock it. "What," asked Amber, "I'm only closing my locker. It's right next to yours there, right?"

Actually, as it turned out it was a couple lockers away from Amber's, but she still didn't want to be near her or anyone else for that matter. When Avalon finally seemed as though she wasn't taking another step near her locker to open it because of the people around her Amber sighed and walked over and began asking people to move away a bit. "Please step away for a moment," she said to people, "Yes, I know, but could you move a bit, please?"

When they finally cleared away Avalon moved forward again and opened her locker quickly, stuffing her small bag with a couple books and paper and moved back away to where Amber was. The other kids looked at them both in disdain, especially Amber for ushering them away from the lockers as though she were some sort of servant for the eternally cold Avalon Knight. Only, Avalon did something Amber was not expecting.

"Thank you, Amber," she said softly, almost too quietly, "I can't touch people." Then, she walked off as quickly as possible, holding her bag close to her chest as though it would protect her from everyone in the hallway. And, indeed, as Amber watched, Avalon did her level best to avoid people around her like the plague. What had Avalon meant when she had told Amber that she couldn't touch people?

Amber walked to her Economics class and sat down behind George and Fred. George lightly punched his brother's arm and grinned deviously. Fred's ears went pink and he laughed loudly. "Hey, Amber," said Fred, grinning at her as he turned to look at her. He waggled his eyebrows at her, forcing a laugh from her as she pulled her book out. "Hope you don't mind my blinding charm and sharp wit too much," he said.

Amber laughed. "Oh of course not, Fred. After all, why would I mind those when you have a double who's almost exactly like you?"

"He's not a double, he's my clone," said Fred. "Hey, Clone!" he said as he clapped George on the shoulder.

George snorted and punched Fred's shoulder. "I'm not a clone, you're the clone," said George.

"Only a clone would say the master copy was the clone," countered Fred.

"Boys, please stop the act for the pretty girl behind you," said Ms. Hardbrook as she looked up at them from over her glasses.

"Awww, but you're the only pretty girl for us, Ms. Hardbrook!" cried the boys in unison.

Amber laughed as both boys turned to her and winked at her. Ms. Hardbrook smiled and folded her hands on her desk. "Now, boys, I'm sure that you would like to tell your mother that you fancy your teacher, but I would imagine she would prefer a girl that was closer to your ages. Please don't disrupt the class and settle down a bit."

Fred and George laughed and moved back to their original positions. Amber giggled behind George and shook her head at the pair before checking over her Economics workbook. Ed and Al walked into the classroom then and sat down behind Amber. Amber blinked as she saw them walk in and turned to look at them as they took their seats. When had they transferred to first period Economics?

Ed eyed her with a strange look, one almost anguished as he gazed at her with his vivid yellow eyes. She blinked at him and smiled faintly. "Hello," she said hesitantly, "I'm Amber Elric."

"Yeah, I know," said Ed quickly.

"Is there something on my face or do you just like to stare?" asked Amber, finding his yellow eyes and his entire appearance all too unnerving.

"Sorry, you," he paused as though to think of what he was going to say, "you just reminded me of someone I knew."

Amber nodded slowly and turned back around. She frowned and looked at her workbook futilely. The look of loss in Ed's eyes struck Amber to the core and it shook her inside to have it still mirrored inside her mind. What sort of cruel joke was the universe playing on her? Was this her great-grandfather behind her or was it some strange dopple-ganger?

She heard Al whisper to Ed behind her and forced herself not to turn to look at them. "Ed, it's all right," he said softly.

"Shut it, Alphonse," grunted Ed gruffly. Then, he stood up and walked out of the classroom quickly.

Amber watched him leave and looked behind her to see that Al was watching Ed leave as well. When he looked to her he smiled faintly, sadly almost, and shrugged. "He's not an early riser."

"Neither am I," said Amber, smiling a little, "Dad says I'm like a little monster when I first wake up."

Al chuckled. "My brother's the same way. He doesn't sleep well at all and wakes up horribly."

"Well, at least he has a brother who sleeps for him, right?" said Amber, smiling a little more at Al.

"Actually, I don't sleep well either, but I don't let that bother me," said Al, "Ed does, though, so he's typically very grouchy all the time."

"Well, maybe he should take some sleeping pills or something to help him sleep." Al laughed so loudly that Ed slowly peeked into the classroom with a glare so murderous that Amber wondered if Al was going to live to see the sun rise again. "What did I say that was so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Al, waving a hand at her, "Don't worry about it, Amber."

"All right," said Amber and turned back around slowly. Ed walked back in after a while as class was just starting and took his seat right behind Amber again. During class Amber couldn't help herself as she took quick glances at Ed behind her, noting the particular way he scratched his cheek when he was thinking, the way his brows furrowed when he found something perplexing, the way he leaned back in his chair and yawned loudly when he was bored out of his mind and earned himself a reproachful look from his brother Al behind him. These little things were similar things she did herself and her father did as well.

When class was over Amber walked out quickly behind Fred and George; they walked into the throng of students in the hallways and melded with the herd. Fred grabbed Amber's arm and pulled her away from the crowd as George walked on as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening. Amber gasped as Fred moved them both to a fairly secluded wing inside the school and put his finger up to his mouth, smiling at her. "Hey, Ambs," he said in hushed tones.

Amber's cheeks heated up as she looked him and up and down, paying particular attention to the way his eyes even twinkled in the half-light of the corner he had taken her to. He let go of her arm and put his hand into his coat pocket, smiling down at her as he fair shielded her from view of everyone with his body.

"What do you want, Fred?" she asked.

"Would you like to go out with me?"

Amber smirked faintly and looked away from him as though she were thinking about it. "Well, where would we go, hmm?"

"Anywhere," he said, grinning, "Anywhere you want. I know you don't know this town very well."

"No, I don't," Amber admitted. She looked to Fred and smiled at him teasingly. "And if I say yes?"

"I'll get on my knees if you don't," said Fred, grinning even more.

"Oh, wouldn't want you to do that," said Amber quickly, "You'd get your jeans dirty from the floor."

Fred dropped to his knees in front of her and held his arms out to her in a welcoming gesture. "Please go out with me!" he cried out in a voice much louder than she could have imagined coming from him. She laughed as her face turned bright red. "Please, pretty girl, I beg of you on my hands and knees! Go out with this humble slave!"

"All right! Just get off your knees, you silly!" she laughed and grabbed him by his collar, pulling him up to his feet. Fred grinned brilliantly at her as he stood up, grabbed her by the waist and swung her around with a cheer. Amber laughed still, clutching onto his muscled shoulders as he swung her around in a circle. When she found ground beneath her feet again she was somewhat dizzy from him swinging her around and leaned against his fairly muscled chest. "Oh, sorry," she said, giggling still.

"Go ahead, enjoy my chest," he said, grinning and winking at her. Amber hit him on his chest as she laughed, making him burst out once more in laughter. When they parted it made Amber realize just how pleasant it was being with Fred, how warm it was. Fred walked out through the wing doors finally before she turned to walk in the other direction toward the courtyard.

Ed stood not far off, gazing at her with an expression that made Amber frowned faintly. He looked relieved, though he still held a rather grouchy look to him. It was a soft expression, something she wasn't used to seeing on his face. He smiled faintly and turned around, walking away from her to where it appeared Al was. She felt a strange happiness inside her, as though a parent approved of her. It was a very strange feeling and left her more uneasy than she had felt that morning when she thought she had seen someone across the street watching her.

She started to walk away when that same shiver went up her spine, in an almost lazy fashion this time. She was beginning to associate this strange sensation with the Knights and Bells, but the lazy roll up her spine more with one Knight in particular. Tom stood off at the back entrance of the Freshman wing and eyed her with his dark eyes. His expression was dark and possessive, something unfamiliar to Amber. He turned away after a moment and left her there, shaking a little inside from the intensity of his scowl. She straightened up after he left and shook herself mentally. Nothing made her shake in fear and she would not allow this boy to make her uncomfortable or feel as though she had done wrong to him when she had done nothing of the sort!


	6. Chapter Six

_A/N: I has a cat against my leg. XD And a crick in my neck .o_

**Chapter Six**

When Amber got home she found that her dad was staying out that night with Sirius and Rouge. That left her all alone in her house to do her homework and anything else she wanted. She grinned and went about figuring out what she wanted to eat for dinner, picking out a movie to watch and talk on the phone with Ginny or Fred if she wanted. She picked out one of her favorite movies and popped it into the DVD player before going to pick out something to eat in the kitchen.

It was during this time that she had that same, involuntary shiver up her spine that she always had whenever the Knights or Bells were around her. It didn't roll up her spine lazily like whenever Tom Knight was around, but it was a shiver no less. She picked up a small kitchen knife and held it in a concealed fashion as she looked around her house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but she had the inexplicable feeling that any moment something was going to jump out at her in the windows or ring the door bell ominously, however well you were supposed to be able to ring a doorbell ominously.

Instead there was a knock on the door.

Amber let out her breath and walked to the door, though kept the kitchen knife in her hand in case it was someone just as ominous as what she had been thinking. She looked through the peep hole and saw nothing. She frowned and moved away from the door a moment. Perhaps whoever had been at the door had left. Another knock at the door proved that wrong. She went back to looking through the peep hole only to find herself staring right into someone's eye.

She yelped and jumped backward from the door as it branded her.

"Amber? Amber Elric?"

Amber let out a sigh and punched the door lightly but loudly. "Damien Black, you evil little—Get in here!" She yanked open the door and looked to the sixteen year old boy in front of her. He was as tall and handsome as his dad with his mother's red hair. He smiled sheepishly at Amber and rubbed the back of his neck as he looked to Amber for her to let him in. "Come in, come in," she said irritably.

Damien walked in and Amber closed the door behind him. She locked the door and went back to the kitchen to put the knife away and finish making her dinner. "I take it you came over here to escape your mom, dad and my dad over your house?"

"Yeah, they're playing Tripoly. They're only in the poker phase and they're already in the insult/joke phase," said Damien as he took off his coat and sat down on one of the plush chairs in the living room. "Hey, nice house! Mum said it looked absolutely brilliant here." He clearly picked up some of his father's accent and vernacular growing up.

"Glad you like it, Damien," said Amber, smiling faintly at her cousin, "Your mom was the one that helped dad pick it out."

"Ah, yeah, there is that," said Damien.

Amber finished making her dinner and walked into the living room, holding out a glass of milk to Damien before sitting down and turning on the television set. "Thank, Amber," said Damien as he took the glass and drank from it.

"Not a problem."

"Erm, Amber…"

Amber looked to Damien, raising an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"I heard from one of my friends that in the freshman wing Fred Weasley asked you out in proper Broadway fashion," said Damien, grinning at Amber with the same sort of smile Sirius was guilty of. It was a broad smile, full of white teeth, but not garishly so. If Amber thought about it she could imagine Damien had his pick of any of the girls at Forks High School with just his charming smile alone, let alone his twinkling green eyes and longish, reddish hair. He wasn't covered in freckles like the Weasleys all seemed to be, but he was fairly pale.

"You're going to give girls heart attacks when you get older," chided Amber as she looked back to her chicken and rice.

"You sound like mum," said Damien, grimacing mockingly.

"Yes, he did, Damien," said Amber quickly, her cheeks heating up as she looked away from Damien's broad grin, "And don't tell dad about it or Aunt Rouge or I swear I'll kill you!"

Damien laughed at her and put his hands up in his defense. "Of course not, cousin! I would never betray your trust."

"Liar."

Damien laughed even harder and Amber joined in after a moment, her cheeks still quite red. When things quieted down Damien spoke again, but Amber almost didn't hear him from the shiver in her spine. "So, when are you going out, or have you not dealt with that yet?"

"Sorry, what?"

Amber looked around and frowned, putting her plate and fork down to look at all the windows in her view. She and her dad were rather paranoid about locking all the doors and windows even when they were in the house from living in the big city. She knew that in some small towns the crime rate wasn't so bad as to warrant that much caution, but she had no idea about Forks, Washington and a group of creepy teenagers named the Knights and Bells.

"Amber, what's wrong?" asked Damien.

"Do you get the feeling that sometimes someone is watching you? An eerie prickling up your spine like an early warning system of sorts?" asked Amber as she stood up and went to the front window.

"No, not really. What's the matter?" asked Damien.

"Ever since the first day of school I've had this strange sensation of someone watching me from afar. It's really getting irritating and very creepy," said Amber. Outside there were no cars that looked familiar, but then it was also very dark outside. She wouldn't have been able to spot that black car even if it was shiny enough to have reflected like the moon on its too-clean surface. "I always end up noticing Tom Knight is watching me."

"Watch out for that, fellow, Amber," said Damien, frowning deeply at his cousin, "I heard that the Knights and Bells had to move because Tom slashed someone's stomach open at their other school."

"That's stupid," said Amber as she moved away from the window, "How would he still be out if that were the case, huh? He would have been put into jail as soon as they had proof and he wouldn't be out for a very long time. Attempted murder and all that."

Damien blinked and sat back in his chair. "Oh. Yeah, you're probably right."

"But he's still very creepy," said Amber, rubbing her arms. She sat down and resumed eating her dinner, her fork scraping across the plate as she finished off her chicken and rice. "That, and I keep having dreams where I see things I just missed in walking away from or wasn't there soon enough to see them. Like, I saw Ed and Al Bell outside talking to one another and Tom Knight showed up so I left as quickly as possible," said Amber, her mouth full of rice, "But when I dreamed of the event it was as though I were right next to them and they were talking about some very… strange things."

"Yeah, but dreams are dreams. There's nothing prophetic about dreams," said Damien. He looked to her plate and rubbed his stomach, thinking. "Oi, Ambs. Do you mind if I raid your pantry?"

"Be my guest, Damien," said Amber, smiling.

Damien went into the kitchen and did what he wanted to there, making himself a sandwich and some soup, and then walked back into the living room as Amber felt the shiver up her spine again. This time, however, it rolled up lazily like fingers touching her. She hugged herself and eyed the door, her heart beating in her chest like a frightened animal. It was the feeling she associated with Tom Knight whenever he was around.

There was a knock on the door right then. Amber and Damien nearly leapt out of their skins when they heard it. Damien laughed and held up his hand. "No worries, Ambs, I'll get it," he said. Then, he went to the door and opened it carefully, as though he was surprised about something. "Hello?"

Amber's heart hammered hard in her chest as she stared at Damien's back. Who was it at the door? Why, oh why, did she allow him to take the door? Sheer anxiety racked through her small body and she wanted nothing more than to grab Damien by his collar and yank him out of the way of the door before taking anything heavy or sharp and dealing with whoever was at the door.

Damien moved back and looked to Amber, smiling brilliantly. "Oi! Amber! Your pretty friend Ginny is here!"

Ginny leaned into view and Amber breathed a sigh of relief. "Ginny!" she cried out. "You gave us both a fright!"

Ginny laughed and walked past Damien, eyeing him as she walked by him. Her ears turned pink at their tips as she giggled. Damien grinned sheepishly as he closed the door behind Ginny. Amber waved Ginny over and grabbed a pillow to hug. "You have no idea how scared I was just then?"

"Eh? Whatever for?" asked Ginny.

"Amber thinks she's being stalked by Tom Knight," said Damien as he locked the door.

"I wouldn't doubt it," said Ginny, "He's freakish and we saw the car Astra Knight drives following us from across the street."

"But that's Astra Knight," said Damien.

"Yeah, well, they all make me uncomfortable," said Ginny. "Give me the shivers just looking at them. I've never seen anyone so unnatural looking in my life. Tom, Ed, Al, and Avalon are all ungodly perfect."

"Yeah, but Astra's not," said Damien, "She's huge compared to the others."

"Yes, well, she still could be a movie star like the rest of them," said Amber. "It's just not right. Not right at all."

"I agree," said Ginny.

"It's like they don't really belong among us, as if they're not really human," said Amber softly.

"Yeah, but they are. There's no such things as vampires or whatever else people call them at school," said Damien, "Well, at least not the kind you find in movies and books." When they turned to look at him with identical dubious looks he smiled that charming smile of his and shrugged. "I want to be a doctor one day, so sue me."

"Anyway, my uncle, Sirius, has a friend who's got a son about our age named Harry," said Amber, grinning at Ginny.

Damien rolled his eyes. "You can't be serious. You're trying to set up my mate Harry with Ginny here?"

"Just a suggestion. I mean, I know he's in England, but they can talk can't they? That's not a crime if they want to?" snapped Amber.

Ginny looked interested, her brown eyes wide and innocent as she looked to Damien. "You don't mind letting me talk to your friend, right?"

Damien's cheeks flushed faintly and he smiled sheepishly at Ginny. "Oh, I suppose it can't hurt," said Damien, "Just don't expect anything."

"I won't," said Ginny, rolling her eyes, "I just want to see this guy Amber seems to think I might like. After all, there are plenty of boys that are very nice here in Forks."

Amber smiled faintly and nodded, writing down Harry's email address and handing it to Ginny. Ginny smiled and looked to Damien as he rifled through his wallet. "Let's see, I believe I've got his picture somewhere in here," he mumbled. "Here he is."

Amber watched as Damien showed Ginny a picture of himself sitting with a skinny young man with messy black hair and bright green eyes behind a pair of glasses. He was smiling in a rather goofy fashion and seemed to exude the term "nerd". "He's a bit nerdy, but he looks really cute."

"Nerd cute is still cute," said Ginny, grinning and winking at Amber. Amber laughed as Damien grimaced and put his photograph away as though they had just said the most disgusting thing ever.

"I can't believe I'm in this scheme to set up my best friend next to my friend Edmund," mumbled Damien, "with **your** new best friend."

"Oh shut up, Damien," said Amber, waving her hand dismissively at him. Damien snorted and went back to eating his sandwich. "Anyway, what brings you over here, Ginny?"

"I thought I'd spring a surprise visit on you," said Ginny, smiling brightly at Amber, "That and Fred and George are at work and Ron is slacking off. I got bored so I thought I'd come around and say 'hi' to you."

Amber nodded and sat back into the couch she sat on. "Want to watch this movie from the beginning with me, Ginny?"

"Sure!" Ginny then hopped onto the couch Amber sat on as Damien finished his sandwich and started on his soup. Amber turned on the movie from the beginning and they all sat back and watched it. When the movie was over both Ginny and Damien walked home, waving good-bye to Amber as they walked out. Her father wouldn't be back until much later, so Amber went upstairs to finish her homework before going to bed.

* * *

She saw her house with all the lights on in practically every room from the outside. She could vaguely make out her image through the curtains, back lit by the lights in the house as she moved around making herself some dinner. She could see it as though she had never actually been inside the house at all, but standing outside and watching it like a strange horror movie. Any moment Amber expected to see Michael Meyers with his mask on and an axe in hand moving around stiffly through the bushes.

Instead what she saw was a red clad figure wearing jeans and long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail at the back of his head like a girl. Edward looked up at the house, through the windows, watching as Amber made her dinner. He looked somehow sad as he watched her, but happy at the same time. It was as though he were reminiscing about past events inside his mind as he gazed at Amber in a familiar fashion.

He stopped smiling when he saw someone walking up to the house. He darted away almost too fast to see him move and dove into the darkness as quickly as possible. Damien came into view and stood at the door, bending down so that he couldn't be seen by the peep hole and knocked on the door. Nothing happened for a moment before Damien knocked again and this time looked right into the peep hole, which earned a very loud scream from the other side of the door. He laughed heartily as the door opened and Amber, inside the house, shouted at him and let him in.

And then it went silent outside, the door closed and locked. Edward came out of the darkness, his bright yellow eyes practically glowing in the darkness as he looked to the door. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of him, muttering. "So, he's one of mine too, hmm?" He shook his head and started to walk away when he stopped dead in his tracks. Across the street was a tall, dark figure with a handmade green scarf around his neck.

Edward snarled and jogged across the street to Tom, grabbing him by his coat lapels and pulling him down forcibly to his level. "You! What are you doing here, you tall freak?" snarled Edward.

Tom eyed Edward like he was merely an annoyance, which bolstered Edward's anger. Tom simply grabbed Edward's hands and pulled them from his coat before dusting himself off. "I am on a merry little walk, what else would I be doing, Edward?" asked Tom.

"You've been watching her ever since she showed up," snapped Edward, "What are you up to!"

"I don't have to answer to you, midget," said Tom in a very cold tone.

"You do too have to answer to me; I'm older than you at the very least!"

"At the very least," said Tom.

"What the devil is goin' on out here, huh?" asked a girl as she walked up, silvery blonde hair pulled back into a pair of loose, low ponytails. "Oi, you two, drop back, someone's comin'."

Indeed, just as Astra had walked up, a red haired girl, one of the Weasley children, walked down the sidewalk and went straight for Amber's front door. When she disappeared inside both young men looked to Astra with mild irritation at interrupting what would have likely become an outright brawl on the sidewalk. Astra rolled her eyes and put her hands on their shoulders. "Come on, boys, we need to get home and get at least a little sleep."

"Get your filthy hand off of my person, you fat cow," snarled Tom coldly. Astra didn't strike him, as Amber would have expected, but glared at him coolly. She didn't take her hand off of him either. Alphonse appeared from nowhere and grabbed a hold of Tom's other arm, smiling pleasantly at him. Only then did Astra let go of Tom.

Tom turned away from Astra sharply in blatant disgust. Alphonse sighed and tugged on Tom's arm gently to get him walking with him before putting both of his hands into his pockets. "Come along, Tom," said Alphonse gently.

Astra sighed when they had finally left and looked to Edward with a concerned look. "Are you all right, Edward?" she asked gently.

"I don't need your help, Astra," snapped Edward, though he didn't move from her hand on his shoulder. Despite this his apparent chilly attitude toward her made her take her hand from him and stuff it into her coat pocket. "He's up to something and it's not good whatever it is."

"I know, Edward," said Astra.

"Mr. Knight can't keep him under lock and key and we can't keep an eye on him all the time like he hoped we would," said Edward in a hushed tone.

"I know, Edward," said Astra, looking as though she wanted to say more. When she opened her mouth, Edward looked up at her questioningly and she closed her mouth, suddenly uncertain.

"What? Did you want to say something?" asked Edward.

"N-no, not really," said Astra. They stayed silent a moment and stood out there in the snowy night. It was the most pregnant silence Amber had ever seen; it was so full of things that wanted to be said and yet were not voiced. "Edward," said Astra softly, looking down through her artificially dark lashes, "I know you worry over much about her, but I assure you that I'm keeping an eye on things for you."

"You're doing a fine job of it," said Edward sarcastically.

Astra went white and looked away from Edward sharply, as though what he had said had stricken her straight to the heart. When she looked back to him she was glaring at him angrily. "Look, I'm doing my best so you don't have to. I'm just trying to be helpful and you're acting like all I'm doing is nothing."

"Because it is," said Edward gruffly. Astra stared at him as he looked away from her and moved away from her finally. "Just stay out of this from now on. This is my duty now. I know she would want me to keep an eye on things for her."

Astra fidgeted uncomfortably and looked down. She pulled her hood up over her head until it practically concealed her eyes. "Yeah, I get it, Edward," she said in a slightly shaky tone, "I'll just keep my nose out of your business, then." Then, she hurried past him, disappearing into the dark street as though she had never been there at all.

Edward scratched his cheek as he watched her leave, not at all happy that she had left and it was evident in the way his eyes followed her every move as she walked away from him. Amber gazed at him sadly. Why was he so reluctant to let her in? He being incredibly stubborn and it irritated her that he was being that way. Edward eventually left her standing there, never actually having ever looked at her or acknowledging her in any way. When she was alone she felt a prickling sensation inside her spine that made her look around to the end of the street, but found no one there at all.

And then she saw the black eyes staring right into her mind as though they could see everything.


	7. Chapter Seven

_A/N: lalalalalala hope ya'll are enjoying this. I'm entirely too amused by picking on poor Amber here. XD_

**Chapter Seven**

Amber frowned out the window as she stared at the footprints in the melting snow. It was finally warming up for the snow to melt, but not by much. She had hoped for a few more snowy days, but it didn't seem as though that was going to happen. It was almost the same back home in Central Texas, except, of course, in Forks the snow had lasted for a much longer time. The snows would come every couple of years and only last for a couple days in winter before disappearing entirely. It was a very sad thing to see. Winter was one of Amber's favorite seasons next to spring because of the chill and the snow. She loved spring because of the renewal and greenness of it.

There were far more footprints in the snow than there should have been with just Damien and Ginny coming over. There were some going around to the side of the house, where it was darkest at night, and then, in the ice on the street, there were melting places that looked like someone ran all the way over in the night before. She rubbed her head and groaned loudly. What was happening to her? What was wrong with her? Every time she had one of those strange dreams it seemed to disappear entirely from her without any warning, despite the fact that it was supposed to be some sort of warning to her.

She got dressed and walked down to have breakfast and watch a little television. Her dad had already gone to work and that, as usual, left her alone in the morning to get ready for school. The ice left on the road was still there, even if the snow was slowly melting away. She would have to get a ride from the Weasleys in order to get to school again. She dug through her purse and pulled out her cell phone to call Ginny when it suddenly rang. She blinked and looked to the I.D. on the screen, but found it didn't give her any name whatsoever.

She hit "talk" and put the phone up to her ear, frowning faintly. "Hello?"

There was no answer.

"Hello?" asked Amber, getting a little irritated. "Look, if you're not going to answer then I'm just hanging up."

"Sorry, I was trying to fix something," said a familiar voice, "Hey! It's still cold and wet outside, would you like a ride to school again, Ambs?"

Amber blushed faintly as she smiled. "Yeah, I would, Fred. Thank you," she said, "How did you get my number? I haven't given it to you yet."

"Ginny, of course," said Fred, laughing on the other end, "She's in the middle of doing something or other in the bathroom."

"Ah," said Amber. They grew silent for a moment before they both started up to say something again, Amber laughing and Fred chuckling at them both. "No, you go ahead, Fred."

"I'm really glad you accepted my offer," said Fred, his voice warm and gentle.

Amber flushed and smirked, tracing a circle on the couch arm absently. "Now, that's not fair, Fred," she said, "We haven't even gone out yet and you're already acting like we're boyfriend and girlfriend and being overly sweet to me."

"Because I like you," said Fred, laughing. Amber's cheeks burned as she giggled. When she didn't say anything more he spoke again, "I hope you like me just as much, Amber."

Amber smiled faintly and made a big smooching sound on the receiver. "Does this answer your question?" Fred laughed loudly, howling practically, before there was a loud thump through the speaker. "Fred? Are you all right?"

"Yeah! I just fell off my chair. No harm done to this manly being!" he said.

Amber rolled her eyes. "So when are you coming over?"

"Soon, we're still in the middle of breakfast—"

"FRED WEASLEY! YOU GET OFF THAT PHONE AND COME DOWN FOR BREAKFAST NOW!"

Amber pulled her phone away from her ear and stared at it until the screaming died down. When she heard Fred come back on she smiled sheepishly. "I suppose that is your mom?" she asked.

"HAH! Yeah, that's my mom all right," said Fred, laughing once more, "I'll see you in a bit!" Then, he hung up.

Amber turned off her phone and looked off at the photos her father had unpacked from the garage. She walked over and picked up a framed photograph, looking at it with a faint smile on her face. It was an image of her mother, her father and Amber as a small child. Her mother, Lynda, had a kind smile and gentle eyes. Amber could remember when she was much younger how her mother used to help her play dress up with some old clothes that her mother kept from her own mother's house.

Amber put the photograph down and sat down, looking off at nothing. How long ago had it been? She couldn't remember anymore and it bothered her sometimes that she forgot little things about her mother. She never forgot her smile and kind demeanor, however. She would always remember seeing her mother lying on a hospital bed with tubes going in and out of her, blood staining the bandages wrapped around her, blood staining the sheets, her mother's wide blue eyes looking at nothing at all. When they had finally focused on Amber they had filled with tears and Amber cried as she tried to hug her mother but couldn't reach around all the tubes and wires. She could remember sleeping in the waiting room, curled up on a stuffed chair. She could remember hearing the doctor talk to her father.

And she remembered the man in her mother's room.

She couldn't remember exactly what he looked like, but to Amber at the time he had been pretty tall. He had a hood up concealing his hair, a cap on underneath to keep warmth in, and was dressed in nondescript clothing. But Amber remembered the way he spoke to her mother. He spoke in the gentlest of tones, like a father to a child. Her father had not been there, but with the doctor, discussing what to do about Lynda Elric. Clearly this man was not someone she knew either, for she would have recalled who it had been.

"Does it hurt too badly?" the man had asked gently.

"I'm not going to make it, am I?" her mother had asked the man.

"No, you won't," the man said, "But I can ask them to make you more comfortable. It's easy, you know."

Lynda smiled wryly and looked away a little from the strange man in her room. Amber watched silently from the doorway, her little mind unable to grasp what was happening. Amber remembered all too clearly how her mother turned to her and smiled through the tears in her eyes, "Come up here, baby. Don't be afraid."

Amber had obliged, but she could still not remember what happened after that very well. She remembered getting up on her mother's bed and sitting there with her, she remembered her mother's finger twitching against her hand as though to comfort her, but the man's face completely eluded her.

What she did remember was that the man had smiled at her sadly, but made no effort to come touch her. Instead he stood still across from her mother and just watched her. When he finally spoke it was to Lynda and not to Amber. "I'm sorry I never had the chance to meet you before, Lynda," he said to Amber's mother.

Lynda had smiled sadly and after that Amber could only remember snippets, as though her mind refused to remember the details of what had happened. She remembered the nurse coming in and taking Amber away. She never saw the man leave, but he had left before the nurse arrived as though he disappeared into thin air. She remembered her father coming in and the doctor looking grim. She remembered when she finally died from her injuries. She remembered the funeral where she sat with her father and cried. She remembered her mother's placid face from inside the casket. And she remembered when they lowered her into the ground to be covered with dirt and grass.

Amber moved away from the photographs and ran her hand over her face, wiping her eyes as she did so. It didn't do anyone any good to remember the sad things. She had to keep moving forward, no matter how hard the past was.

The doorbell rang, jerking Amber from her thoughts. She looked to the clock and stared. It was close to the time she would normally leave for school on her bicycle. She walked to the door quickly and looked out through the peephole to see Fred's smiling face through it. Amber giggled and shook her head before opening the door for him. "Come in, Fred," she said, "I'll get my things."

"Nah, it's okay," said Fred, grinning, "I like standing outside the doors of cute girls in the freezing cold."

Amber shook her head, laughing, as she picked up her backpack and put her shoes on. When she was done, she walked out and locked the door behind her before walking to the car with Fred behind her. Ginny waved to Amber before opening the door to the backseat. "Amber! You look awful!"

"Thank you so much, Ginny," said Amber sarcastically.

Ginny blushed faintly as Amber sat down next to her and closed the door. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say anything mean, just that you don't look so good. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Amber, "Just remembering things."

"Like that test in Biology, eh?" said George.

Amber grimaced and looked to Ginny. Ginny held a similar expression. "You too?" asked Amber.

"Yeah, but for Social Studies instead," said Ginny.

"I wonder if there's a Washington History class you have to take," said Amber, "In Texas it's a requirement to have one year of Texas History, a year of American History and a year of World History in order to graduate from high school. Not necessarily in that order, mind you."

"I'm taking it," said Ron.

"Oh, so I'm missing it, huh?"

"Yeah, it's in sophomore year here."

Amber nodded and looked back behind her through the back window. There was no car behind Fred's like the previous day. Instead, all she saw was ice glistening on the road as they drove past the local grocery store.

"What's Texas like?" asked Ginny.

"Changeable," said Amber quickly. When Ginny raised an eyebrow at her, Amber laughed. "Sorry, it's an old saying that if you don't like the weather in Texas you should wait five minutes and it'll change. Spring, Fall and Winter have the most changeable days. Sometimes it can start off really cold in the morning and then by the time you're walking home from school it's super hot. Sometimes it starts off raining and then it'll suddenly change to something else. It's always like that."

"Wow, sounds a bit like being up here," Ginny laughed.

"Summer is most of the year and it's usually very sunny and very hot with hurricanes bringing in rain or just lots of wind," said Amber, "That is, if you live in central Texas like I did. You could look up in the sky and see the arms of the hurricane overhead, spiraling into a distance that you wouldn't believe. That is, if it's a big hurricane over Texas. If not, then we lose any chance of rain because the hurricane sucks up all out weather and leaves us dry."

"Must be scary," said Ginny.

"Sometimes," said Amber thoughtfully, "But not usually. Only sometimes. Tornados are the bigger fear. In one second your whole life could be destroyed in front of you and you can't stop it."

"I bet," said Ron.

"Okay, children, we're here!" said George brightly.

"Yes, mommy," Ginny said in the most childish voice she could muster. She laughed as she and Amber got out of the car and walked away. "Hey, Amber?"

"Yeah?"

Ginny blushed to the roots of her hair as she walked backwards to keep facing Amber, grinning shyly. "Your friend, Harry, is a really sweet guy. Thank you." Then, she skipped off as though she were a little girl again. Amber couldn't help but smile at her as she did so, feeling happier than she had before.

And then there were the screams. Amber heard the screeching of tires as a truck careened toward her. It was like it was in slow motion, so close to her already, sliding across the ice as the driver tried desperately to keep from hitting her. Amber leapt as hard as she could, but it did no good. The truck hit one car and bounced off right in her direction. She scrambled hard across the icy street as the great truck went right for her. The scream of metal twisting against metal, and the sickening sound of bones breaking, sounded loudly in her ears as something hard hit her around the waist and threw her hard into the grassy median. She rolled to a stop and coughed hard, holding her middle before looking to see what had happened.

The truck had hit someone else's car and knocked it right into the side of another car, right where she had been scrambling to. Someone, or something, had tossed her from that spot to the grassy median where she lay right then. She looked around as she saw people running to check on the driver and herself. She started to get up, but found doing so hurt. Her ribs didn't feel broken, but they certainly hurt a great deal as she tried to get up. Two hands grabbed her under her arms and lifted her up slowly. "Amber, are you all right?"

That same almost sickening shiver attacked her spine as whoever lifted her up spoke to her. She looked up and saw Ed Bell looking down at her with a most worried expression. His yellow eyes were wide and frightened as he looked over her carefully.

"I'm… fine," said Amber, fighting a strange feeling inside her as though she had met him before. Not that she had never seen him before, but she never really spoke to him until he came to class.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" he shouted at her.

"Sorry?" Amber was confused, blinking at Ed like he had gone insane.

"THAT GUY COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! YOU SHOULD'VE GONE THE OTHER DIRECTION, YOU STUPID GIRL!!"

Amber glared at Ed. It was like she was being scolded by a parent with the way he was shouting at her and the worry etched into his fine featured face. In fact if she didn't know better, by the way he looked to her, he appeared to be like an angry, short version of her dad in a way. Amber pushed that thought out of her head as she limped away from him. If he was going to be an ass to her then she wouldn't talk to him at all.

"OI! I'M TALKING TO YOU! HEY!" Ed grumbled and started walking after Amber. "I said 'oi'!"

"Shut it, Ed," said another voice, this one of Al Bell not too far in front of Amber. She bypassed Al and let him deal with his brother. She left them behind to duke it out, she wasn't going to bother with them if they were going act like a pair of idiots.

It was then that she noticed a small trail of blood, though it didn't look normal. It was reddish-black and it sizzled and disappeared on the tile as though it wasn't meant to be there at all. She followed the quickly dissolving trail to the bathroom where it looked like someone had crawled in on their hands and knees when they reached the interior of the bathroom. She looked around and closed the door, putting her bag down in front of it. Once again the blood on the floor was practically vaporizing in front of her eyes. It all led to the handicapped stall, the biggest stall in the ladies restroom where the door had been hurriedly closed and someone was cursing and hissing in pain.

Amber knocked on the door and the person shut up immediately. "Hello?" she said softly as she opened the door and looked cautiously through. "Are you all right?"

Astra was sitting on the toilet, gripping the rail built into the tiled wall, hugging her leg which had the same reddish-black blood on it. Her unnatural blue eyes looked at Amber in fear as she breathed heavily. "I'll be fine," said Astra automatically.

Amber stared at the mess and watched as the blood dissolved into nothing on her clothes, though a faint stain could be seen in the cloth of her jeans. Astra swallowed hard and continued to hold her leg tightly as Amber stared. "You.. can leave me alone," said Astra.

"No, you need to go to the hospital," said Amber.

"I said I'll be fine."

"Amber!" cried Fred from outside the ladies restroom. Amber backed away from the stall and limped out of the bathroom to find Fred looking her over quickly. "Amber, are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," muttered Amber, welcoming his warmth as he hugged her gently.

"An ambulance is here. They want to check you out," said Fred, then added with a grin, "I said any tough bird like you could have survived with nothing more than a bruise."

Amber laughed as she allowed Fred to help her back outside to where the ambulance waited. The driver of the truck had been a boy Amber had only seen briefly a few times in the lunch line but had paid little attention to. Blood was everywhere in his truck, his front window shattered and scattered everywhere. Jason Miles was his name and the EMTs were wheeling him into the ambulance on a gurney.

A smiling man in uniform walked over to Amber and sat her down on the end of the truck to check her out while they attempted to stabilize Jason Miles. He asked her little questions about how she felt, what hurt, where had she been when the truck collided with the cars, describe the amount of pain she was in when she had been walking. After it all passed the EMT told her to go to the hospital later to get her ankle and ribs checked as he gave her a pack of ice to put on her ankle.

"AMBER!!" cried her father as he ran over and hugged her. "Amber, I was just called over here about an accident. What happened?"

"Jason Miles lost control of his truck and slammed into those cars there. She escaped though," said Fred, grinning.

"I can talk you know," Amber said.

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to steal your glory, Bionic Woman," said Fred, grinning slightly at Amber. He was paler than before, as though he was actually frightened to death and simply covering it up with that smile of his.

"They built my faster, stronger and more powerful than ever before," Amber added, grinning reassuringly at Fred before kissing his cheek. Fred blushed and grinned broadly as Hughes chuckled.

"If you two are quite done I would like to take my daughter to the hospital. That ankle looks like it's swelling a bit," said Hughes. In a second he easily picked her up on his back, like he used to do when she was little, and gave her a piggy-back ride to his cruiser. "I'll tell the school you'll be out today and tomorrow. I've got some Epsom Salt at home under the kitchen counter for just this sort of thing."

Amber kissed Hughes on the cheek and hugged him around his neck, smiling. "Thank you, daddy."

Hughes chuckled and put her down gently and let her get into his cruiser before driving off with her. "I'm glad you're all right," he said, his voice cracking.

Amber put a hand on his shoulder and gently gripped him there. "I love you, dad."

"I love you too, baby," said her dad.

* * *

Edward found Astra hiding out behind the school, using water and a little soap to try to get her pant leg unstained. The woods behind the school were an excellent cover for the students who wanted to ditch class and those who just didn't want to be seen. She hissed as she looked at her leg, the skin still healing from the bone breaking through it.

"You're bloody stupid," said Edward, glowering at Astra. Astra jumped slightly and looked behind her at him as his expression became even stormier. "You're so bloody stupid," he shouted at her, "YOU COULD HAVE CAUSED A REAL SCENE OUT THERE IF THEY HAD FOUND YOU! YOU COULD'VE BEEN COMPLETELY DESTROYED BY THAT CAR AND KILLED!"

Astra put her hands over her ears and winced as Edward breathed heavily, his cheeks flushed. When he quieted down Astra turned back around. "Look, I'm sorry, I did what I thought was best. She would've been squished to jelly by those cars. And look, nothing really bad happened and I got away perfectly fine."

Edward continued to glare at her before grumbling and looking away, his blonde hair hanging someone in his face as he looked down. "Thank you," he muttered. Then, he walked away from Astra.

Astra looked at his back and then smiled faintly. That was the first time he had thanked her for something since the day she had met him. She breathed in, feeling a bit giggly like a little girl as she continued to try to clean her pant-leg.


	8. Chapter Eight

_A/N: Bella is a fucking retard. I swear it. Not only is she a fucking retard, but she's a fucking whiny, bitchy, disrespectful cunt of a retard. And Edward? He's now started to hit creepy. Not dangerous creepy, but stalker creepy. -.o and I am at a complete loss as to why fantards love him so much because he fails so miserably. ON ALL LEVELS. At least Tom is genuinely dangerous and fucking creepy at the same time. He you can at least crush on and gush over because he's AWESOME. _

_My grandpa's a former fire and safety chief for NASA and an old marine. . Blame him for my foul language when I'm pissed off. _

**Chapter Eight**

The local hospital was a nice little place with various people coming in for sometimes big injuries to typically small ones and sicknesses. Nurses walked in and out of the main doors leading to the hospital rooms and the like. The doctors only sometimes came out to talk to people in the large waiting area before walking back through those main doors to disappear in the vast mystery of the rest of the hospital. Hughes checked her in to be checked over by the doctors at the hospital, but since it wasn't an emergency it would take a while to get to Amber. Amber didn't mind, she had a book with her that she needed to read for class so she took the opportunity to sit in the waiting room and read.

When it was Amber's turn an hour later her father helped her limp all the way to see the doctor. The nurse led her through a labyrinth of hallways and rooms inside the west wing of the hospital where she had entered. When she was let to a room, she sat down on the bed provided and waited with her father, reading silently as more time went by. A bizarre feeling shot through Amber that forced her to look up. It was an ancient feeling; someone far older than he should have been was near. In her ears she heard an old chanting, like monks singing low and the thrum of a heart beat. Perhaps it was her imagination, but as soon as she looked up at the man who had walked in the feeling passed and so did the onslaught of sound.

The doctor was a very tall man, well over six feet tall, with longish blonde hair and unnaturally blue eyes that looked almost animal like. They reminded Amber of Astra's eyes, though more blue. His shoulders were broad and even with his doctor coat Amber could tell he was well built. His jaw was strong and his cheek bones fine. Indeed, Amber wouldn't have doubted it if Astra had said this was her father. The pair looked very similar to one another. The doctor smiled at Amber and knelt down to carefully check her ankle.

"Hello," he said, "I am Doctor Kiernan Knight. I see you've managed to injure yourself, Miss Elric." His voice was gentle and low, soothing as he spoke. He was too perfect!

"Car accident. Did the EMTs bring Jason Miles here? He was the boy who lost control of his truck on the icy road and nearly ran into me," said Amber quickly.

"Jason Miles," said Dr. Knight carefully, thoughtfully, "Oh yes, they did bring him in. We stabilized him well enough. I've put him into ICU for now."

"Will he live?" asked Amber, looking worriedly to the doctor.

Dr. Knight smiled warmly up at Amber and began wrapping her foot up again, this time with something rubbed into her swollen skin. "Yes, he will live, Miss Elric."

"Good," said Amber, smiling back at him.

"I also see on your chart your ribs might be bruised," said Dr. Knight as he finished wrapping her foot up, "Care to tell me how it hurts and when?"

Amber told him and he moved up to check her rib cage. He nodded and got a nurse to come in. "The nurse will wrap you around your ribcage, but otherwise you're fine. Don't do any heavy work outs with your ribs bruised like that or it'll hurt a great deal for a while longer than it needs to." He grinned impishly and winked, "But if you ask me I'm sure you've already figured this out."

Amber laughed and regretted it a bit as her sides began to ache from it. Oh, but it felt good to laugh. When the nurse finished wrapping her ribcage Amber was free to leave and take care of herself at her own peril. At least that was what the nurse said that Dr. Knight had told her to say to Amber. Amber once more laughed as her father checked her out of the hospital and took her home. Dr. Knight had a subtle sense of humor and she liked that great deal. It was too bad his "son" Tom was a total jerk, however.

* * *

Amber woke up and looked out the window, frowning. Her dad had left after dropping her off at home so that she could rest and keep her foot elevated. She decided she would take that opportunity to sleep, but as usual she couldn't sleep all that well. She could still see Astra's red-black blood dissolving before her eyes and the look of outright fear in Astra's eyes as she tried her best to say something to Amber. How had Astra managed to save her and then crawl all the way into the school without anyone noticing? Perhaps she had used the opportunity of everyone rushing toward Amber and Jason to scurry away to the bathroom under everyone's vision.

And why was Astra healing so fast?

The Knights and Bells were unnatural. Not only were they unnatural, but they possessed a strange unnaturalness that forced Amber to feel like the most evil of creatures was near her every time they came near. As though God shunned them and Amber, being a human, a child of God, was repelling against them because of that evilness naturally. She could go into a whole debate on that thought, but she wasn't going to attempt it with the small headache forming inside her skull. Instead, she went down to vegetate in front of the television.

A shiver rolled lazily up her spine and this time is was the strongest, strangest sensation than ever before. It actually forced her back to arch slightly from it. When it subsided, she stood up unsteadily and limped carefully toward the window to look out. That sensation, the lazy one, was usually associated with one particular Knight and she was going to give him a piece of her mind for constantly stalking her the way he had been for the longest time. What was it he had against her that he was going to keep being in the corner of her vision at every turn?

She opened up her front door and growled in her throat when she saw him standing by his too-perfect, too-clean, shiny black car with his perfect suit cleaned and pressed and his coat perfect without any mess on it. She narrowed her eyes at him and glared, storming out, or limping out really angrily honestly, to meet him at his car across the street. The cold hit her like a slap in the face as she moved over the ice. She didn't let it stop her, however, she kept moving as swiftly as she could to his car and got in his face.

"What is it with you, Knight!" she snapped. Tom didn't even raise an eyebrow at her, smirking just faintly at her like she amused him. That was _it_. "Stop coming around here, stop following me around, stop being the intimidating little freak that you are because I'll put so many restraining orders out on your ass that you will be sent to jail the very second you come up within a ten mile radius of my house. And with the laws there are today _I can and will do it_!!"

She huffed silently as he just stared down at her from his impressive height, mildly amused by her tirade. She glared at him still, though, not relenting under his calm, cool gaze. When at last she thought perhaps it was time to go in, he grabbed her by her throat and held her in place, his eyes taking on an insane glint as he smiled at her eerily. She clutched at his gloved hand, but he would not release her and began lifting her up. "Do you honestly think I care one whit about what you and your petty laws could do to me, you stupid little girl?" he said in the coolest of tones. Amber's heart hammered hard in her chest as she slapped at his hand hard.

He pulled her closer and closed his eyes as though he smelled the most wonderful thing in the world. A part of her screamed that the most wonderful smell was perhaps her own body, but she ignored that for trying to get away from him as quickly as possible. "I haven't had human meat in so long," he said in a soft voice, "How amusing would it be to watch that fat bitch attempt to tell dear Edward what happened to his precious little girl when I get done with you. It would almost be worth that damned doctor playing with my brain again."

"Let me go!" cried Amber, kicking him in the stomach as hard as she could. It did little good. He just laughed. Then, his grip seemed to slack just a little. She blinked and looked to him, gasping slightly at what she saw. Red-black blood oozed down from his nose as his eyes widened in what Amber could only assume to be horror. His hand trembled and then he dropped her on the icy ground. She yelped in pain and scrambled away from Tom, watching him touch the blood and then look at his gloved hand. The blood sizzled and vaporized just like Astra's had.

Who were these people?

Better yet, what were they?

Amber moved back a bit more as Tom bled more from his nose, dribbling over his mouth and over his white chin as he tried to move forward toward her again. He stumbled and caught himself on his perfect car; the sound of his blood sizzling was louder now as it hit the roof of his car. Amber was torn between seeing if he was all right and wanting to run. What did it say about her that she wanted to see that he was all right? That she was as completely and utterly insane as he was?

Amber moved closer slowly, cautiously, ready to bolt should she need to. "Should… should I call an ambulance for you?"

"Get. Away. From. ME," snarled Tom, his eyes going red as he glared at her. She stepped back slightly at that. He then opened up his car and pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, whipped it and wiped his bloody nose and chin carefully with it. "Damn that doctor to the pits of hell." Then, he snapped his car door shut and drove off.

Amber stared after his car as it disappeared around the corner. She rubbed her backside and shook her head, unable to quite grasp what had just occurred. Edward must have referred to Ed Bell, but why say Amber was his little girl when Amber was the daughter of Hughes Elric. And what was that about eating human meat? She had her suspicions, but they could be counted as somewhat unfounded until she could get concrete proof of her conclusion. Tom's confession was only part of the puzzle. The rest had to come from the other Knights and Bells.

* * *

The Knights and Bells sat quietly, ignoring the strange looks they got from everyone. They were used to it by now. Avalon and Alphonse sat beside one another, Avalon on the end so that no one could touch her with Alphonse holding her hand occasionally under the table. She poked at her cooked meat and frowned in disgust as he fork sank into the cut of beef and looked greasy. Astra watched Avalon and sighed, chewing slowly on her steak. It wasn't great, but it was better than what the school normally offered the students. It was also better than starving for most of the day.

Though she didn't look it, Astra was the oldest of the Knights and Bells. It was hidden by the way she dressed herself and the way she pulled her long, silvery blonde hair back into a pair of low ponytails. All of these were her personal preferences for dressing herself and tended to make her look as though she were munch younger than Edward and Alphonse.

Avalon put her head on Alphonse's shoulder and settled against him, closing her eyes and wincing slightly. Alphonse looked to her, concern in his yellow eyes. "Avalon?" he asked gently.

"A headache, Alphonse," she said softly.

"Maybe I should take you home," he said, rubbing her side through the black corduroy dress she wore.

"No, I'll be fine after a while, when everyone leaves," she said and continued to snuggle against Alpohnse's strong shoulder. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head as he wrapped his arm around her and held her closer to his side. He didn't like it when she had headaches, but he knew why it was she had them.

Astra sat across from Edward and watched him occasionally as he finished off the steak that had been cooked for him. Even when they had proper fare Edward ate like a pig and gobbled his food up quickly, so his general, muttering excuse for his table manners for the way he ate being he didn't like the food and wanted it down before he could taste it was completely superfluous. She sighed and shook her head, looking down at her steak and taking another bite.

"Astra," said Edward after a moment.

Astra looked up at him, her cheeks growing pink. "Yes?"

Edward didn't look at her and poked at his plate as though he really wasn't sure he wanted to be speaking right then. "How is your leg?"

Astra smiled brightly and nodded to him. "It's better," she said. Edward nodded and continued to poke at his plate. Astra watched him and then poked at her own thoughtfully. When at last she spoke again she was interrupted by Tom sitting down with less than his usual grace. "What's wrong with you?"

Tom glared at her, the circles under his eyes worse from how much whiter he had grown. Alphonse looked worriedly at Tom, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right, Tom?"

"Get your hand off me," snapped Tom. Alphonse rolled his eyes and moved his hand away from Tom. Tom, meanwhile, stared at his steak with less than his usual enthusiasm… and then giggled. That usually wasn't a good sign when it came to Tom.

"Are you sure you're all right, Tom?" asked Astra, frowning faintly.

"Just let the fool giggle and eat," grumbled Edward as he looked away.

"I told them to make it rare," he said, "But they never listen. Never. Perhaps I should have a quiet chat with them about that mistake." Then, red-black blood oozed out from his nose as he stared at his cooked steak. "I hate cooked meat."

"Alphonse," said Avalon quickly.

Alphonse stood up and took hold of Tom, hauling him out in short order. Alphonse leaned him up against the wall of the hallway as people passed by them, chatting about their next classes, schoolwork, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends and teachers. No one ever noticed them when they were so busy with their regular lives being normal teenagers. That was what made it so easy to move around them inside the school. Adults were even easier to move around them without them noticing. Children, however, knew to watch for them, knew inherently that there was something wrong with them. Children were the ones they stayed as far away from as possible.

Tom's eyes rolled in his head as he leaned up against the wall of the hallway. Alphonse had to keep his arm wrapped around him to keep him from sliding down as he was completely limp in Alphonse's arms. "Hey, Tom, mate, are you all right? You're in terrible shape," said Alphonse, immediately dropping his American accent as he spoke softly to his friend.

Tom groaned and leaned his head against the wall of the hallway. "Piss off, Alphonse," he muttered. Alphonse rolled his eyes and shook his head, hefting up Tom once more to keep him from sliding down the wall.

"Go and find something to eat, otherwise you're going to kill yourself like this," said Alphonse in a much harder tone than he usually used.

Tom giggled and trained his vivid deep blue eyes on Alphonse. "Maybe I'm supposed to die, ever think of that? It would be ironic, wouldn't it? That the great Thomas Marvolo Riddle who wanted only to never die, gained that immortality and then died from a simple country doctor who fiddled with his brain when he shouldn't have."

"Don't start with me, Tom," said Alphonse, moving away from Tom. Tom stayed upright and straightened up slightly, though his eyes still held a certain amount of the insanity that clearly addled his brain. "Go and eat something. We'll make your excuses."

Tom breathed a little heavily and groaned again, rubbing his head before looking to Alphonse with a snarl. "Fine, don't think I'll ever thank you for anything," he said and then staggered away down the hall toward the back of the school.

Alphonse watched him leave for a little while before heading back into the cafeteria where Avalon looked at him expectantly from where she stood. He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. "He'll be fine, he's just a little hungry," said Alphonse pleasantly.

"You don't believe that," said Avalon.

Alphonse's smile faded slightly. "No, but I think letting him hunt a little on his own would be a good idea." This earned him Avalon's head nuzzling against his strong chest. He smiled warmly and kissed the top of her head before walking out with her. "Come on, we should leave," said Alphonse softly to Avalon. Avalon leaned up and kissed him boldly, making Alphonse's heart thunder in his chest. She definitely had a way of persuading him to what she wanted, that was for certain!

"Take me home," she said and started walking out the doors. Alphonse looked to his brother who just waved him out as though this was nothing unusual before jogging out after her with her parasol.

Astra shook her head as she watched the pair leave and seemingly disappear into the cold air. She then looked to Edward and smiled in spite of herself. Edward looked up at her, somewhat surprised by her smiling at him, or maybe it was the way she was smiling, and said, "What's wrong with you?"

Astra flushed and looked away quickly. "Er, nothing," she said, suddenly feeling like the awkward teenager she dressed herself as, "Nothing at all, Ed."

Edward grunted and looked away. When she looked to him again his cheeks were pink, like hers. Before she could say anything more he stood up and pulled a woolen cap over his head and then pulled his hood up over his head. "I'm going out. Get my homework for me, Astra," he said.

"Get your own, pipsqueak," she snorted.

Edward snapped around, his cheeks burning, but kept his tongue and turned away. "All right, have it your way then," he said as he started walking away.

Astra laughed loudly and called to him. "All right, munchkin, don't worry I'll get your homework no problem! Just don't follow any wicked witches or girls wearing shiny red shoes!"

"I guess that means I shouldn't ever follow you, eh?" shouted Edward from over his shoulder.

"EXACTLY!" cried Astra, giggling. Edward walked out the doors as Astra calmed herself down. Perhaps she was making progress with Edward, perhaps not. She hoped she was, but she also feared that she was. It was all so confusing in her head. And so, with a heavy sigh, Astra went on for another day of getting all four of her "siblings" their homework for the day.


	9. Chapter Nine

_**A/N: I'm barely halfway through this stupid book and I'm on the last dregs of my pen. -.o This book is going on way longer than it needs to be. A LOT longer.**_

_**And I just downloaded the score of Twilight. Not bad. Too bad the whole franchise is worth shit. Oh God, Skin Of A Killer is way too dramatic to be attached to that campy scene.**_

_**Also, sorry for being on hiatus for so long. XD;; I've finished reading Twilight and am on New Moon and I have to say New Moon actually sucks worse than Twilight ever thought of sucking. At least Twilight didn't have Bella constantly whining and bitching so much that she makes me want to punch orphans. And she becomes suicidal. Because Edward leaves her. She's a complete idiot.**_

**Chapter Nine**

Amber came down for dinner to find her father ushering in her uncle Sirius, aunt Rouge, and cousin Damien. Damien looked up at her and grinned at her broadly, looking a lot like his father as he did so. "Amber! I heard that you were nearly run over!" he said loudly.

Rouge shook her head and tried not to smile at her son before walking over and hugging Amber. "Don't let the fruit of my loins get to you. He takes too much after his dad."

"Oi!" called Sirius, laughing.

Amber hugged them all and sat down carefully to put her foot up on the coffee table. Hughes gave her a plate of stir fry he had whipped up and a fork so she could eat while the rest found places to sit on the couches around her. Hughes had not bothered setting the table since Amber needed to keep her foot elevated to help alleviate the swelling. In the middle of everyone starting to eat the doorbell rang again. Hughes stood up and walked to the door, ushering in Fred, George, Ginny, Ron and what Amber assumed to be their parents. The woman was a stocky lady with shoulder length curly red hair, a pleasant smile on her face and a warm look about her. Her husband was tall and lean, his red hair almost gone from the top of his head, a warm smile on his freckled face that was as inviting as the mother.

"Ah! You must be Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, I expect?" asked Hughes with a smile.

"Yes!" said Mr. Weasley, grinning happily as he shook Hughes' hand in greeting. "I'm Arthur Weasley and this is my wife Molly."

"Hello," said Molly as she shook Hughes' hand as well.

"We thought we might pay you a visit as well, since you're new and our sons Fred, George and Ron and our daughter Ginny wanted to see how your daughter was doing," said Arthur Weasley.

"You're welcome whenever you want to come over, Arthur, Molly," said Hughes, "I'm Hughes Elric, by the way."

"Glad to meet you, Hughes," said Arthur.

"Indeed," said Molly, smiling, then looked to the twins, "Oh do go on. It's not as though I chained you to my side for the rest of the evening, I just wanted to keep you two out of trouble on the ride over." She sounded just a little exasperated as the pair of tall, broad shouldered boys fair towered over their mother as though they knew it irritated her that they could do that now, both with identical mischievous grins on their freckled faces. "Shoo!"

Fred and George laughed as they moved away from their mom and sat down on either side of Amber, both putting an arm around her shoulders. Amber felt suddenly very small compared to the pair. Rouge laughed at the pair and smirked deviously at Amber. "It seems you have a pair of admirers, eh? Good girl. Taking after your old dad and aunty."

Amber's cheeks burned before she shoved both boys a bit away from her. "It's not like that, Aunt Rouge, Fred and I are going to go out on a date, but George likes someone else."

Rouge giggled and leaned a little on Sirius. "The smiles on the pair of them reminds me of Sirius when he's with his mates from school. Remus, James and Sirius, the marauders, ran around their school wreaking havoc as they saw fit. You remember Remus, right? He's married Sirius' cousin Nymphadora, by the way."

"And good luck to him," said Sirius, "because ol' Tonks will keep him running ragged. He needs it."

"Now really, Sirius, Nymphadora is a very nice girl," countered Rouge, eyeing her husband.

"Only to you," Sirius grinned.

"And everyone else who isn't you," said Rouge.

"You're getting me fired up, wife of mine," said Sirius, his pale gray eyes twinkling at her mischievously.

Fred kept his arm around Amber and settled back against her as she ate. George went over to where Ron and Ginny were talking about one thing or another, likely to give Fred and Amber some space. Amber appreciated it a great deal as it was very difficult to eat when both boys were playing their usual game with her. Fred smiled at Amber in a somewhat secretive fashion, waggling his eyebrows at her. She giggled and eyed him suspiciously. "What?" she asked softly.

"You've got teriyaki sauce on your chin," said Fred, grinning broadly at Amber, "Think it would be too forward of me to lick it off before we've even had the chance to go out yet?"

"Yes, it would be," said Amber, chuckling.

"Aw, and I though I might just get away with it." Fred then pouted at her, though Amber knew he was only doing it to make her laugh.

"My dad isn't very far from us and he keeps a gun nearby, you realize," said Amber.

"Only too well, little gold haired munchkin," said Fred, "But what a way to go, eh? Death by flirtation, though there would be better ways to die I imagine. What do you say? Maybe I'll make a pretty corpse, eh?"

"Don't joke like that," said Amber quickly, a sudden strange feeling in her bones that was not unlike someone walking on her grave.

"Oh don't worry, I don't plan on dying any time soon," said Fred, grinning at her. She settled her small body against him and finished her stir fry slowly. After a while, when it grew dark outside, George, Ron, Ginny and their parents decided they were going to leave for home. Fred stayed around to enjoy some more time with Amber and her family. Hughes broke out the card table and they started playing Tripoli, cracking jokes with one another about who discarded whose cards before they could discard theirs.

Then, Amber felt that same rolling sensation up her spine. It was becoming more and more acute as time wore on. Now, instead of being a strange shiver up her spine she could actually feel as though fingers were trailing up her back in a very lazy motion; long fingers of a hand that she could never keep her eyes from when he came near. It was disturbing to her that she should be able to identify the feeling. It gave her a new sense of violation of her body that she could not stop and shuddered suddenly from it.

"Someone's at the door," she said suddenly, hoping it would go away as soon as Tom was let in.

"Eh?" said Hughes. He turned sharply as the doorbell rang suddenly, echoing in the now very quiet house, even though Rouge, Sirius, Damien, Fred, Amber and her father were just playing and joking in the middle of a game of Tripoli. Hughes stood up and walked to the door, frowning deeply as he opened it. "Hello?"

Amber listened as Tom Knight spoke softly, his voice even and devoid of any actual feeling. "I came to give your daughter a get well gift from my parents," he said stiffly.

"Did you. And you are?" asked Hughes.

"Thomas Knight," said Tom in that same formal, cold tone. Amber looked over carefully and saw the dark circles under his eyes were more prominent because his skin was far paler than usual. He didn't look as bad, however, as when he had started bleeding. Amber still wondered what exactly they all were. They didn't exactly match up with anything that came to Amber's mind. Tom had said he had missed having human meat; that meant whatever they were they were carnivorous. The idea that they were vampires seemed like a good option, but there was the problem that they came out during the daytime, though, admittedly, the daytime was very cloudy and overcast. Also, Tom had said human meat, not human blood. Weren't vampires supposed to just drink blood?

"Come in then," said Hughes as he stepped aside for Tom. Tom eyed him with an amused look in his vivid, deep blue eyes before walking past Hughes and into the living room. He held in his arms a box as he walked closer to Amber and set it down. It was medium sized and covered with silver wrapping paper and had a card attached to the top. It looked to festive to be a get well present at all!

Tom held the present out to Amber and looked at her expectantly, bored, or tired, out of his mind. "Have at it then. Mother really enjoys working with her hands."

Amber took it carefully and eyed it a while before looking up at him. "Thank," she said quickly and set the gift down.

"Well, aren't you going to open it?" asked Tom, though he really didn't look like he cared.

Amber frowned faintly at him and opened the present carefully. When she got the silver wrapper off of it she opened the box to find a hand knitted scarf like the Knight children had worn that one day. It wasn't perfectly done and it looked a bit uneven with the stripes, but it was super long and trailed the ground as she stood up and wrapped it around herself. How was she going to wear it? She would have to wrap it around several times just to keep it off of the ground. Tom looked annoyed by it and lifted up one end to look at critically. "Bloody woman," he muttered.

"Sorry?" asked Amber.

"My mother likes working on arts and crafts and knitting is something she just recently picked up," he said as he held up the end for her inspection. "This is typical." He looked even more annoyed at it than Amber thought he should. Even if it wasn't the best it was still full of heart because the woman who had made it had tried hard to do it for her. She must have worked all morning and afternoon to make the scarf for her so Tom could deliver it later.

"I think it's nice," said Amber, straightening up to look up at him. Tom snorted derisively and moved away.

"I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest of your night without me here," said Tom as he made way for the door.

"You're… welcome to stay for a game or two," said Amber automatically. She frowned faintly at herself. Why had she asked him to stay? He clearly was dangerous and more than a little frightening.

Tom stopped and looked slowly over his shoulder at her, those dark blue eyes for the first time showing something other than contempt for her. She wasn't really certain what emotion they conveyed, but it wasn't insanity and wasn't disgust and contempt for her. His lips curved up slightly in a smirk on his too-perfect profile. "I'll take that offer," he said slowly, "at another date." Then, he flicked his eyes away from her and walked out past Hughes.

Amber turned to see where he had looked and found Fred looking as though he would very much like to punch Tom's perfect face right through the wall. He smiled after a moment, however, when he saw she was looking at him. "Coming to join us, Ambs?" he asked.

She smiled and nodded as she took the scarf off and set it down carefully inside the box. "All right," she said.

* * *

Astra looked up from her book as she watched Tom leave the house. She was sitting away off to keep an eye on him from the bushes of a house across the street. He didn't seem to notice her so she made sure she stayed as quiet as possible. She peered through the leaves carefully to keep track of him only to find that he was not in her sights anymore. She frowned faintly and looked around quickly. Where had the bastard gone?

"Still trying to impress the midget by following me?"

Astra shot up from the bushes and fell on her rear on the cold, wet ground. She hissed and got up slowly, glaring at him hotly. "I'm not trying to impress Ed, Tom, so stop saying that."

Tom snorted and moved away from Astra, having managed to get behind her without her knowledge. He hardly cared what the fat little cow did anyway, so the only real irritant was that she, as usual, was looking after him like some spy for that damned doctor.

Astra brushed herself off a moment before picking up her purse and slinging it across her chest. Then, all at once she was off her feet and several feet away from Tom, coughing hard as she held her stomach. Tom smirked faintly, eerily at her. "Do you honestly think that sitting around and watching after me will do any real good?"

Astra coughed hard and pushed her purse off of her, getting up slowly. "It's my… it's my damn job!" she croaked. She was so busy trying to get her wind back that she didn't see him move and felt his foot kick her right in the stomach where he had hit her. She was thrown once again and hit a tall tree in someone's yard. Blood spurted from her mouth and landed on the grass as she hit the tree, her back breaking with a sickening snap and a massive shot of pain up in her upper body, her lower body suddenly numb. Paralyzed for the moment, until her spinal column and spine both healed, she lay where he had kicked her, gasping for breath as blood dribbled out of her mouth and nose onto the ground. The night was theirs and so the blood didn't sizzle immediately like it would in the day time.

Tom clicked his tongue at her like she were some little child as he walked leisurely toward her, that insane smile spread across his beautifully sculpted face. His hands in his pockets, he pulled one out and knelt down to the bag she had taken off to protect it if she ended up in a fight with him. It was too bad she had not foreseen him acting out as quickly as he had and ended up just being a punching bag for him. He lifted up her mp3 player and eyed it, smirking. The custom made mp3 player was her pride and joy next to her computers and the look in his eyes made her scream out at him, "Put that damn thing down! Put it back in my bag! Leave it alone!!"

"Oh? Did you want me to not touch this? It is after all only a little gadget, something to pass the time with," he said lightly and dropped it onto the ground. She yelped out at him when he dropped it and then watched in horror as he dropped his heel right onto the screen, crushing it instantly. He chuckled as tears filled her eyes, running down over her cheeks in pink streaks. "Oops," he said.

He walked closer to her and knelt down to her, grabbing her shirt and lifting her up a bit to face him. She cried out in pain as her back was moved. He grinned eerily at her, sickeningly, as he eyed her coldly. "Why cry over a little gadget? After all, Astra, you can just buy a new one."

"Fuck you!" she snarled and slammed her hand into his throat. He coughed hard and dropped her, moving away from her as he tried to get his breath back. She winced and let out a loud grunt of pain when her back moved again, but thankfully her back was beginning to heal up. The numbness in her legs was starting to go away.

She looked at the mess that was the mp3 player she loved so dearly. It had been a present from Mr. Knight. It had been a good mp3 player, never once giving her any problems, and that bastard had to go and break it! She tried to move her legs, but found that her back had not finished healing. Her quiet moment was interrupted as he kicked her over and over again in the stomach and on the ribs. She tried to shield herself from the blows, but this only succeeded in him kicking her arms which hurt worse than him kicking her on her stomach. "Stop it!" she cried out, gurgling slightly as blood filled her lungs. She coughed some up onto the ground and couldn't get a single breath back as he continued kicking her. When he stopped he glared down at her coldly and knelt down to her as she wheezed.

"Rotten bitch," he said his tone harsh, "I'll make you drown in your own corrupted blood."

"No she won't!"

Edward punched Tom right on the jaw and sent him sprawling. Astra coughed and gurgled, the numbness in her legs disappearing and her toes could move, but the rest of her was hurting terribly from what Tom had done to her. She was only barely noticing Edward and Tom fight each other, Tom losing against Edward as Edward kept sending the taller man down to the ground. Finally, Edward snapped his foot up and kicked Tom on his jaw one last time that sent Tom further away than before. Tom laid still on the ground, unconscious or just in pain Astra didn't know.

Alphonse ran over to Tom and knelt down to make sure he was all right, meanwhile Edward knelt down to Astra and picked her up after putting her bag on his shoulder with the broken mp3 player. She hugged onto him around his neck and held on as tightly as she could, but the blows she had sustained were making her pass out from the pain and blood filling her lungs. Only then were the wounds finally beginning to heal up. Edward looked at her, concerned, his vivid yellow eyes looking at her gently instead of hard like they usually were. "Just… hang on until we get to the house, all right?" he asked softly.

Astra nodded and leaned her head against his, closing her eyes as he sprinted away from the place, faster than any human eye would ever be able to see. Alphonse, meanwhile, stayed behind with Tom until Tom woke up finally. Only then did Alphonse, for once, actually look angrily at Tom, his yellow eyes burning unnaturally. "You're a bloody idiot," said Alphonse sharply, "You attacked Astra? Why? For what reason? Because she was following you?"

"I hate that bitch," grunted Tom as he slowly sat up and rubbed his bruised face.

"Hate her all you want but she is our family as much as yours and by God we're not letting you hurt her," said Alphonse.

"None of you are my family," snapped Tom, glaring at Alphonse, his eyes red and glowing slightly in the dark, "This little charade can't last forever. One day I will beat whatever mind control that damn doctor put on me and I will kill each and every single one of you slowly just to savor it."

Alphonse grabbed Tom by the collar and hefted him up in one move. Tom grunted and shoved Alphonse away from him. "Get away from me!" he snarled. However, Alphonse didn't budge an inch. Instead, Alphonse simply turned his yellow eyes calmly to Tom.

"The mind control only works against you killing humans, Tom," he said softly and then smiled faintly, "We're not human anymore, so what stops you?"

Tom hesitated and stared hard at Alphonse, his skin going white. Indeed, hitting Astra had not produced the pain inside his skull like it had before with Amber. Indeed, what did stop Tom from outright killing them all? Tom giggled as the realization hit him. He could get away from them. He could kill them all and kill others like him. He could do anything he wanted so long as it wasn't against a human.

Alphonse let go of him and moved away from him. Tom blinked and finally focused on the taller of the two Bell brothers, as though he just noticed him there. Perhaps he **had** just noticed Alphonse there. Alphonse didn't carry the gentle expression he usually had on his face. Instead, what was on his face was something more primal and far more dangerous than Tom had ever seen on the younger brother's face. "If you do hurt them," he said coldly, far colder than it should ever have been coming from such a gentle young man, "I will do worse to you than you could ever imagine."

Tom stared in spite of himself. He frowned faintly, uncertain of what was going on anymore. When had Alphonse become so dangerous looking? Tom usually hardly cared, but the idea of Alphonse actually being angry with him somehow struck him as odd and very wrong. He stepped back a bit, uncertain of what to even think anymore. He put his hand to his head and stumbled backward once more. Alphonse moved toward him and put his hands on Tom's shoulders gently. "Are you all right, Tom?" he asked, his tone much gentler than it had just been.

Tom shook his head and then looked at Alphonse. What was wrong here? Tom should want him dead and yet…

Tom moved away from Alphonse and straightened his coat and tie, pulling his gloves onto his white hands. "I'll be fine," he said, the coldness in his tone once more returning. Alphonse nodded and brushed himself off as well.

"Don't be late. No doubt Mr. Knight will have been notified as to what had happened. I imagine he'll be very cross with you," said Alphonse softly, "Even more than I am. Astra is his favorite."

Tom snorted and walked away from Alphonse, leaving him there in the cold air. He waved to Alphonse without turning to see him. Alphonse simply sighed and looked to the house that belonged to Amber and Hughes Jr. "I hope you never learn the truth of things," he said softly, "I hope you never know what is really happening right under your very noses." Then, he, too, walked away.

The blood spilt on the ground from Astra and Tom both sizzled very slightly as it took all the life from the grass in the yard. The grass turned brown around the blood and withered until all that was left of it were bald spots on the once totally normal looking lawn.


	10. Chapter Ten

_**A/N: . Alphonse has somehow taken on the role of Jasper here. . That wasn't my intention, but, now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Astra's got more of an Emmet type thing going on since she's the strong arms there. Avalon's got the clairvoyance… except worse. And Ed's the wiseass who tends toward being amazingly emo………. No wait, there's no difference there is there. XD;; Sorry Eddy.**_

_**And since that gets brought up…. Ed/Astra=Edward/Emmet? .**_

_**And Tom's in a category all his own. He'd rip Rosalie apart and burn her remains.**_

_**And for those who are curious or have no idea why I do this, I genuinely despise Meyer and her creation, but the Cullen family is fun to pick at a lot and I love them well enough to keep picking at them. My friend Amanda started me on it and we enjoy picking on Edward the most. We blame Meyer for ruining them.**_

**Chapter Ten**

Amber went to bed that night uncertain what was happening. Her father had said he had heard a fight outside, but when he went out he couldn't find anything. He had said it sounded like a pack of animals fighting. Perhaps it was just that, perhaps it wasn't. One thing Amber knew was that Tom had been there and left and just shortly after he left the fighting started with a female sounding voice crying out in pain.

The next morning when she woke she put her shoes on carefully, her ankle too swollen to put on the shoe any better, pulled her coat and the scarf Mr. Knight had made for her, and walked out into the cold. She limped across the street and into the neighbor's yard, looking for any evidence that maybe it really had just been animals fighting. Perhaps it had been a territorial battle? She saw the dry bald spots on the neighbor's lawn and frowned deeply as she limped carefully over to them. Against the tall tree in the yard she found the biggest patch of bald. She tilted her head slightly and frowned more as she imagined something laying there and bleeding.

A tiny, silver light caught her eye and she frowned at it as she looked at it peeking out of the grass. She knelt down and picked up a small silver rectangular pendent with a cross shape cut out of it hanging off of a very thin silver chain. She stood up and eyed it carefully before looking around again. This had come off of a girl, the chain was too small to have come off of a man, and they had heard a feminine shout of pain from across the street.

Amber stowed the necklace away into her pocket as carefully as she could before limping carefully around in the other yards looking for the same bald spots in the usually immaculate yards. She found one more several feet away. She looked down at it and frowned once more. All around she could see where the grass had matted down slightly from feet, but nothing very definitive. She sighed after a while and walked back to her house with the necklace in her pocket. There she took it out and examined it. Avalon didn't seem the type to wear such jewelry, but Astra did. However, there was just one problem with any one of them wearing it: how could a vampire stand a cross, a holy symbol of Christ, on their body?

She set the necklace down on her dresser and sat down on her chair in front of her small desk where she kept her laptop running. She looked up various articles on vampire myths, as many as she could find, and found that none really matched what she was slowly finding out. The ethereal glow to them, the need for human meat rather than blood, their strange beauty, they even walked out in the daytime, so what exactly were they?

One thing was very clear, however: they weren't human.

She stopped researching and went back to her bed where she laid down with one of the books she had to read for class. The books that they usually had to read for school were typically far too dull to care about and often bored her so badly that it was an absolute chore to go through them. However, she did it diligently and read as quickly as she could get away with so she wouldn't have to endure it for very long. Thankfully, she was a fast reader and very good at memorizing detail.

* * *

The sun shone a bit more than it usually did, though it was mostly just a break in the cloud cover over the little town of Forks, Washington. Kids were in school and everyone else was doing what they usually did on a weekday at that time of the day. Most would never dream of seeing something as unusual as a predator out and about during the day, but when their guard is down it is far easier to prey on people. It's almost too easy, in fact. People see what they want to see and ignore the finer details in lieu of the things that matter to them.

Tom sat in the shade of his car, staring out at the break in the clouds through the tinted glass of his windows. Such ridiculous rules applied to him and yet he could not break them unless he really wished a very nasty sunburn that would make him a wonderful spectacle to the rest of the school. Oh no, cloud cover was fine, a bit irritating and draining, but fine. Direct sunlight, however, was killer. It was ridiculous, but a ridiculousness he had to endure. As the clouds moved back into place he started to get out of his car, not really caring about going inside except to keep up the ridiculous appearances that were demanded of him by that awful doctor and his ditzy wife.

And then something caught his eye…

A flash of white in the corner of his vision forced him to pay attention. His deep, dark blue eyes flicked over to where he had seen the ghostly vision. By the side of the school? Had the fat cow managed to heal up entirely already? She was faster and far more agile than her size should give her the ability to have, but something was different. Whoever he had seen was not Astra Knight, but someone else with long white hair. He was certain of it. His gut feelings never failed him before.

Tom closed the door of his car and walked steadily over to the side of the school where he had seen the vision of white, his eyes starting to turn red as he felt a hunt coming on. It would be the perfect thing to make his day better to rip something apart, especially if it meant that his head would not throb and he would not lose any of his blood doing it.

He sniffed the air and frowned faintly. Whatever it was had a similar smell to Astra, similar but different all at once. He looked to the tracks in the ground and then looked around carefully. It had not been a ghost. The physical evidence was before him that someone had indeed been there, but who and why?

Another flash of white and Tom was thrown several feet away from where he had been standing. He only had enough time to roll out of the way as a woman came right down on him with her hands resembling more like claws than hands. He rolled to his feet and moved away from her as she went right after him, far faster than Astra could have ever dreamed of being. Then, he heard her giggle as she came at him, an insane little giggle that made his blood run cold when he heard it.

He jabbed her hard in the face and kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying backward. She landed and rolled to a stop before getting up slowly. It was then that he saw her more clearly. Her hair was a mess, all wild, white curls that were in need of a good grooming with leaves stuck in them. She lifted her face and he could only see part of her face through the hair that hung in it, but what he saw made him very uncertain of what he was seeing. Her face was very similar to Astra, her cheekbones high, her jaw fairly strong though more feminine than Astra's, her face a little more pointed than Astra's. One eye peered at him that he could see, presumably the other was hidden by her hair, and it was as pale and vivid gray as Avalon's eerie eyes.

He took in what he could of her body. Astra was heavy, her shoulders broad and her hips just as wide, her breasts large and her waist wasn't small enough to make up for the width of the rest of her if it tried. This woman, however, had the fairly broad shoulders and hips and a perfectly small waist to give her a nice hour glass figure. It was an improvement, at least, to the rest of the women he had seen, including Astra. He preferred women to be small, doll-like even, to what most men considered sexy. This woman, however, wasn't nicely dressed, or, to be more exact, she had been nicely dressed and she had clearly ruined it while running around.

"Who are you?" he asked finally, watching her stare at him with those eerie eyes of hers. She just giggled, however and swayed on her feet as though about to run or pounce on him again. "I'll ask again… who are you?"

"I answer no one. No one and everyone. I answer only me!" she giggled. "Birdy loves to play games! Will you play a game with Birdy?"

Tom frowned at her. What on Earth was wrong with her? This was getting very irritating and she was putting him out of his mood to kill something. He snorted and straightened his tie and ran his gloved fingers through his hair. If she wasn't going to do anything then he might as well just leave her to do whatever she had come before. However, he didn't make it more than a few steps before he felt an explosion of pain and her arm was sticking out through his chest on the right side, her hand once more like that of bird talons. He gurgled and wrenched at her arm, twisting it hard to force her to move away from him. She screamed and shot away from him, holding her limp arm as he held onto his chest, panting hard. Red-black blood dribbled down his chin from his mouth and sizzled. Then, he did the last thing he ever thought he would have to do…

He ran as hard as he could away from her.

He dashed to his car and heard her running after him. He ducked when she took another swipe at him and ran right into another car head fist. She swiped at him again and got the car instead, her talons hooking into and ripping the hood of the car like some fantastical monster. For once Tom was frightened for his very life and seeing those talons turn the hood of the car into little more than scrap made him even more fearful. His chest burned as the light hit it, sizzling as the red-black blood poured down his torso. He was getting dizzy and needed to get someplace safe away from the white haired beast before him. He shot for his car and dove into it quickly. He heard her leap right on top of it, but she fell off as he peeled out of the parking stop and out of the parking lot. He didn't even look to see if she was satisfyingly rolling on the asphalt or not. He was too frightened to look.

The trees moved past as though they were nothing. Not a single cop stopped him and if they had tried he would have simply ditched the car to run away. His vision was getting blurry from the lack of blood. He needed to feed and he needed to get home where that damned doctor could help keep him from dying long enough to feed on something. She had thankfully not damaged his heart, though she had done enough damage to him. He reached the outskirts of the town where the more expensive houses were located along the road, though most were hidden by the trees. When he found the right driveway, a mailbox marking the house drive with the name Knight written on the side of it, he turned and weaved along the drive trying to avoid running into the trees as his vision began to fail him.

He stopped when he reached the house and leaned back in his seat, panting, sweating faintly, the color somewhat pinkish. He loosened his tie and tried to get some air. He slammed his hand on his horn to get someone's attention, the sound echoing through the woods surrounding the house. He unbuttoned his shirt with one shaky hand as Mrs. Knight, tall and blonde haired, leaned out of the house and then ran to the car. Her curly hair bounced as she jogged over to his driver's side and opened the door, looking in. Benedikta Knight pulled him out carefully and picked him up in her deceptively strong arms and hurried into the house with him, shouting for help as she did so. Tom hardly cared. His mind was deciding now would be a good time for a time out from the daily grind. And so it did.

* * *

The sun was shining brightly down on Forks when Amber went to school the next day. She noticed that she didn't see Tom Knight's car or Astra Knight's blue car out in the parking lot as she had ridden her bicycle through the student parking lot. By lunch time she noticed that none of the knights were there at the school, as though they all decided as one to skip school. She frowned faintly as she looked out over the cafeteria. She hardly wished to see the awful Tom Knight, but she still needed to ask Astra Knight if the necklace she had with her was Astra's or not. While Amber suspected it was, she still preferred confirmation. And confirmation of the necklace meant that Astra Knight had been there that night.

Amber didn't like having to be so sneaky, but given how the Knights closely guarded their interests she doubted a single one of them would have willingly agreed to talk to her, especially Ed Bell. Yet one more thing to add to her mental list was the idea that her own great-grandfather was a vampire of some sort. That wasn't something you saw everyday and definitely not something out of a novel. Even in novels they never went that far with a strange plot device like that, usually. No, what was occurring was far stranger than anything Amber could have ever dreamed up inside her head.

There was also Avalon Knight who clearly was trying to warn her away from Tom Knight on account that he clearly wanted to do something nasty to her. She couldn't think of what was causing him to be so angry, but, judging by his behavior, he didn't really need a reason to hate someone or to target someone other than a good challenge or pure boredom. He was clearly sociopathic; he hated everyone around him equally and took joy in being cruel to them when he could.

Amber was glad when Fred and George took her mind off of things by telling her about a double date they were planning between her and Fred and George and a girl that Amber had only seen on occasion in the hallways named Rina Fury. Rina was a pretty girl with golden brown hair, a gentle face and big green eyes. If she thought about it, Rina resembled a bit of a woman she had seen in the family photo album as well as a man her father had pointed out as Maes Hughes.

"So, you still want that date, hmm?" asked Amber as she eyed Fred with a small smirk playing across her face. He grinned broadly and waggled his eyebrows at her, making her giggle. "Hey, I'm being serious. I've got a bad ankle, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," said Fred, grinning, "But I'm not missing a single chance to go out with you. Not one single chance. If you can't walk I'll carry you!" Amber blushed and felt that strange niggling thought of Fred dying crop up unexpectedly. It chilled her inside to think of it. Fred frowned faintly at her expression as it turned very pale and frightened. "Hey, Ambs, you all right? Y-you look like you've seen a ghost or something," said Fred, rubbing her side gently, his arm wrapped around her waist.

"It's nothing," she said quickly and shook the notion from her head. Everyone had a fear of losing someone close to them. Amber had lost her mother when she was young. She could lose her father at any given moment if the crime rate in Forks happened to hit just right. It only made sense that she had a problem with losing people and Fred was quickly becoming very close to her. They had not even made it to a first date and already she felt as though they had been friends for years. Perhaps in some parallel world they might have been friends for so long, but in this one she had only just come to Forks, Washington and he and his brothers and sister were the first people she had begun to get to know. Their mother and father she had just met not two days ago.

She sighed and let the feeling pass as they walked to class with Fred; George had gone off with Rina Fury ahead of them to take her to class before going to theirs. Today was like any other day with no Knights and Bells to make everyone disturbed. It was like someone had opened the windows and let all the fresh air and light in for them. Amber couldn't believe how much the Knights and Bells affected the school populace until that very moment when not a single one of them could be found inside the building. When they were inside the school everyone was just a little less free, a bit more tense, the air a bit more tense, when they were gone the school was like any other school; such was the affect of the strange beings that were the Knight family.

It was then that she felt a small shiver up her spine as something passed by the window of the classroom. The classroom was located on the ground level, so anything that was running around outside could be clearly seen. It was just a small dark patch, really, that she saw the movement in, and the shiver up her spine was neither the normal one nor the lazy finger trail that Tom seemed to cause in her. It was a cold feeling, more like seeing a ghost than anything.

She frowned and looked out the window as well as she could from her position in the classroom. It wasn't easy; she sat right in the middle of the class with Fred and George right in front of her. As she peered over the head of her neighbor she saw the movement again, a head of white, messy hair skittering across the ground to another dark spot as what looked like smoke trailed after it. She frowned deeply. What was she seeing?

"Miss Elric, is there a problem?" asked the teacher softly.

"Ah, I need to go to the bathroom. May I have a pass?" she asked quickly, standing up.

"Come and take one, Miss Elric, but don't take too long," said the teacher. Amber wasn't certain if the teacher figured Amber was going to do something or simply just didn't care, but Amber didn't argue and went to the front of the class and took a pass from the desk, signed her name on it and walked out with it in her hand as quickly as possible. The next thing she would do was going to be an interesting trick since whatever was outside was occurring outside her class room windows. She had to avoid being seen by the teacher at all costs.

She hurried quickly down the empty hallway, looking for teachers and hall monitors as she jogged to the exit at the end of it. Once she got out she was at the back of the school where no one would be keeping watch. She sneaked her way under the windows of the first floor, skirting the edge of the wall as quickly as she could. This was one advantage of her small height; she could get under the windows by practically ducking down to do so. Certainly she would have a kink in her back afterward, but if she were any taller she would be easily seen.

The clouds were shifting again, the shade they brought moving over the ground. She finally found the spot she had seen the white haired person moving around and saw the patch of shade from the cloud was moving away from the spot where she had seen them run to. Out darted the white haired person, a young woman not much older than the Amber's own peers, was running headlong right into Amber. Amber moved away sharply to avoid getting hit and only then noticed, after the strange, dirty young woman had passed, that there was a smell of burning flesh trailing after her in the smoke as she moved to a shady spot.

The young woman curled up in the shady spot and shook horribly, crying softly as she hid her head in her arms, her knees drawn up to her fair sized chest. Amber moved closer, uncertain of what to do. She saw on the young woman's legs that she had been burned badly by something. Patches of her legs had bubbled, turned red, from some great source of heat. The blood that oozed from her wounds was red-black and sizzled as it hit the air, making her whimper further. However, as she sat in the shade, the wounds started healing up as though they were nothing. It had been like the time she had seen Astra Knight in the bathroom nursing her leg.

"Um… miss? Erm—can I help you?" asked Amber softly, moving a little closer, though cautious. In reality, there was a feeling of fear bubbling up inside her as she stared at the young woman that Amber couldn't explain except as a need to run away as fast as possible. Amber did her best to ignore it to get closer to the young woman. If these people really were vampires then the sun clearly was their enemy and this was one of their own directly in front of her. It wasn't that she had a death wish; honestly, it was that seeing such a person so clearly scared that this young woman resembled more of a small, frightened little girl than an older teenager.

"Miss? Miss, the clouds are moving again," she said softly.

The young woman's head shot up, her pale gray eyes looking around and then to Amber. For a moment, they turned brilliant red as they stared at her and then quickly turned back as she saw the light moving toward her. She darted forward again to follow the shade to a set of trees, moving far faster than Amber thought possible. In fact, she could barely see her even move. She still smelled the burning flesh, however. Thankfully, the trees provided lots of shade so whoever this person was didn't have to run again for a while and there were plenty of bushes to lie under.

The young woman seemed to follow the same line of thinking, if perhaps instinctively, and ducked under the bushes until Amber couldn't see her at all. Why was one of the Knights' sort of people running around the school? Surely, if they were vampires, this one wasn't trying to find something quick to eat here at the school! If that were the case then wouldn't the scared thing have tried to kill her before running? She clearly could move fast enough Amber would never have noticed her hit her before running.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a car, one that was dark gray and rather non-descript except for the severely tinted windows, parked in the back road that served as a street for the garbage pick up trucks and the recycle pick up trucks to get to the dumpsters. She watched the window roll down slowly and a face she had not thought she would ever see alive staring at her in disbelief.


	11. Chapter Eleven

_**A/N: aaaaaaaand so it begins… blah…**_

_**You know, I was reading New Moon this afternoon and I got to the part where everyone was getting the stomach flu or something and then Jacob got sick I wondered if perhaps Jacob's changing was making those around him sick and that when humans come in contact with them before they change humans get sick in reaction. However, I then remembered that there's no way that could be the case because Meyer is fucking stupid and not smart enough, clever enough, or creative enough to come up with something like that.**_

_**Eat that, Twilighters. :D With Love.**_

_**Also, Blaze is at the door making lots of noise meowing at me to pay attention to her and feed her. =3=;; **_

**Chapter Eleven**

Maes Hughes.

The man in the car was the very image him. His face was as angular as the photograph of Maes and his family, wife Gracia and daughter Elicia. His beard was the same, sparse and running along his jaw line. His hair was even slicked back the same as the man she saw the photograph of. The only difference was that the photograph was in black and white and the man before her had vivid green-gold eyes that looked so unnatural as to be inhuman. He was pale, his eyes had circles under them much like the Knights and Bells, and he was wearing a regular suit and tie rather than an old British military uniform. He also didn't have glasses on his nose like in the photograph.

There was only one problem: he was supposed to be dead.

A sort of realization dawned in those unnaturally greenish-gold eyes for they widened when the window rolled down and he turned his gaze onto Amber. He looked between her and the bush the girl had skittered under to hide from the sun as though trying to figure out what was going on himself. Amber spoke finally and waved a hand to him, "Hey! Hey! Hey, sir! May I speak with you?"

But the window rolled up immediately as she spoke and he drove backward away. She frowned as she watched and looked to the bush. It was unoccupied now. In the distance Amber could see the white hair bobbing as young woman ran away into the safety of the woods behind the school. Amber stared after her and then looked to where the car had left to. This was definitely getting much more suspicious and clearly something that could not stay secret much longer if she was definitely seeing the dead come back to life. Al and Ed Bell _might_ have been a coincidence, just a pair of young men who happened to resemble strongly her great-grandfather when he was younger and her uncle before he died. There were enough people in the world that she could run into anyone sooner or later that looked exactly like her.

However, could the same be said for Ed and Al Bell _and_ the mysterious stranger who was watching the back of the school right where a girl who was burning alive in direct sunlight was skittering away to safety?

This was something she needed to tell her dad and quickly. Who knew if the Knights and Bells, that white haired girl and the Maes look-alike were not some sort of creepy coven like one might read in a crazy paranormal romance novel or something? Even worse, it could be like _Buffy, The Vampire Slayer_ and they could be some strange mutant form of vampire that was out scoping the school for potential food sources. No, she definitely needed to get home and quickly.

She ran inside as quickly as possible, jogging down the hallway with the pass in her hand and ran into the safety of the class room behind Fred and George. When class let out, she packed her things, went to her locker, took out what she needed and stuffed it into her backpack before heading off at a dead run to her bicycle. The rest of the kids in the school would be heading to their next class. She was usually a very good student regarding attendance and school work, she was sure she could get away with skipping at least part of a day of school with her record like that. She just needed to get home as quickly as possible where she knew she could at least keep track of what was going on.

She reached her bicycle and unlocked it with shaky hands, adrenaline rushing through her system like a tsunami. She somehow managed to get the lock off and put away and pulled her bike away from the bike stand without injuring herself from her hands shaking as badly as they were. Her ankle was still quite swollen so she couldn't peal out the way she probably would have wished or even ridden for as long as she wanted without taking a break for her ankle, but by God she was getting out of there as quickly as she was able. Things moved too fast inside her mind to keep up with. Ed and Al Bell both in her dreams and in real life, Avalon Knight speaking to her in her head as well as coming to her house in the middle of the night to deliver some sort of message, Astra Knight and Tom Knight, the Maes Hughes look-alike, the burning, white haired girl behind the school; it all added up and kept adding up to the greatest and most mind shattering conclusions inside her mind. Amber wasn't stupid. She knew there were most likely things in the world that were not recorded by science or would never be recorded by science. She knew that not all things could even be seen by everyone. She knew so many things and yet right then she felt like she was going crazy from the very conclusions she was coming up with.

How could actual, true to life, vampires be real? How could they be real when they were supposed to myths? Truth be told she knew that all legends and myths stemmed from something that started them, something extraordinary, but something so extraordinary as what she had been seeing since she had moved to Forks, Washington? How could any of it be possible? It was all totally impossible and yet it was all staring at her in the face!

She slammed the door of her house and leaned on it, breathing quickly as she took in the safe confines of her home. This was what was real. The house, the things in it, the people who lived inside it, the photos on the mantle, the television set in the living room, the furniture, it was all real and part of reality. It was normal. It was logical. It was **sane**.

She began to calm down while leaning against that door and eventually left it to make sure all the other doors and windows were locked as well before heading up to her room with her school books. She would have to get homework from the teachers the next day and give the excuse that her ankle was bothering her. Certainly it was throbbing a bit from both the ride and her running on it, or really she was more or less limping really fast on it, but not enough that she couldn't dull the pain with some mild pain killer and soak it for a while to help lessen the swelling that no doubt was starting up again in her ankle.

She found the necklace from earlier on her dresser and picked it up to look at it again. The very suddenly real possibility that the people that were so unnatural in Forks were something other than human still raised one question inside her mind: how could a vampire stand to wear a cross? She knew there were some novelists that wrote that vampires liked crosses and didn't sleep in coffins or they slept in coffins, but the powerful among them all could wear crosses. However, those were novels not real life and at that very moment those things were suddenly becoming a very **real** worry in her mind.

She waited, looking out the window occasionally to see if she could spot the gray car, the black car of Tom Knight, or the blue car of Astra Knight. She saw none and waited still, keeping to her bed where she did her homework as well as she could to keep her mind off of it for the time being until she heard the police cruiser drive up into the driveway and park. Then, and only then, did she come out of her room and look over the banister to watch her father walk in and lock the door. She limped carefully down the stairs, her ankle hurting, as she knew it would from the activity she gave it, as she made her way down to ground level.

"Hey, Ambs, what's up? Did you just make it home?" he asked.

"No… I… My ankle was hurting so I came home early," she said, "I'll get my homework tomorrow from what I missed."

"Odd, you don't normally let stuff like that bother you," he said, frowning faintly at her, "Are you sure that's all that's bothering you? You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

"Dad, I need you to sit down and talk with me… very clearly," she said in as even a tone as she could make herself use. He frowned more and walked over to the couches and sat down. She sat down across from him and put her foot up onto the coffee table, looking at him with her gold eyes into his blue ones as she tried to find a way to voice what chaos was inside her mind.

"Amber, you know you can talk to me about anything, honey," he said softly, smiling faintly at her.

"You remember I told you that there were two boys at school that looked oddly like Great Grandpa Edward and Uncle Alphonse?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What if I told you that they weren't just look-alikes but actually were Great-Grandpa Edward and Uncle Alphonse?"

Hughes frowned again and stared hard at Amber. "I… don't really know how to answer that, honestly," he said, eyeing her carefully, "What evidence do you have to prove this claim?"

"Never mind that for the moment, dad," she said, "I've got more." She took a deep breath and looked at him squarely in the eyes as she spoke. "It's not just them, dad," she said, "Tom Knight has been stalking me, even threatened me not too long ago. I have been noticing him watching me from every place I am and every time he shows up I know he's there because I have a... a-a feeling that runs up my spine when he comes near enough. It's not just him, though; the other Knights in the Knight family give me similar feelings when they come near."

"What do you mean Tom Knight has been stalking you and what do you mean by 'feeling'?" he asked slowly.

"Tom came by here when it was still snowy outside. I saw his car parked outside the house and I went out to confront him and tell him off for stalking me and that I would press charges if he continued to do that. He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground," she said.

"Well, you've always been a light girl," said Hughes softly.

"But that isn't all, dad. He said it had been a long time since he had eaten **human meat** and when he did that he started bleeding from his nose this odd… very odd blood that was so dark it was almost black and it sizzled when it hit the light," said Amber, "And then he dropped me and left quickly after that."

"All right," said Hughes, still watching Amber carefully, "What do you mean it sizzled."

"I mean it sizzled as though it were boiling and then disintegrated like it was nothing," she said. "The same thing I saw in the girls' bathroom at school when I went inside after the crash. I found a trail of blood to the girls' bathroom that was quickly disappearing before my eyes and in the bathroom was Astra Knight with a broken leg so bad that it was protruding through the skin and she was bleeding like a stuck pig. Again, the blood was disappearing as soon as it hit the air practically and making a hissing sound as though it were oil in a frying pan. Fred and George got to me before I could really ask her anything, though," she said quickly, "Dad, I was thrown from the wreck to safety by someone who had remained and I heard the sound of bone breaking."

This time Hughes remained silent and just nodded his head to wait for more information. "They look like they're half dead from lack of sleep and lack of sunlight, they all sit together alone, they all eat food, but only the **meat** from their plates. They all have special lunches made just for them. They didn't come in today at all. We all heard the growling outside and the fighting and in the neighbor's yard, the one across from us, was a spot where someone had been laying for a while and the grass has died completely. In that same spot I found a silver necklace with a cross shape cut out of it. And Tom's eyes change color to red every now and then, especially when he was threatening me."

"Sounds a bit like he might have been on something if his eyes were red," said Hughes, though he didn't sound convinced by his own admission.

"No, dad, not red like bloodshot. I mean red as in **devil eyes**, slit pupils and all," said Amber.

"Might've been a trick of the light," said Hughes, his voice growing quieter.

"And that's **still **not all, dad," said Amber quickly, "Avalon Knight has been around here as well. I found a bow and a bit of lace on the fence where she had got her dress caught on it while leaving. I've got the bow and lace still upstairs. And it isn't just her coming around here, but I get dreams where I see exactly what I missed from conversations between the Knights and the Bells. There's always a warning with them that I'm in danger and always having Tom in them shown to be stalking me and getting into fights with his brothers and sister. She doesn't go near people at all and outright avoids physical contact at all costs except that she gets from Al Bell.

"And then there's what happened this afternoon," she said after a breath, "This afternoon I saw someone skittering from shade to shade with the same sort of white hair Astra Knight has except it was messy and curly, like she's not combed it in ages and has been living under shrubs. Her clothes were dirty and torn and she was curled up and rocking like some mental patient or a scared little kid."

"Maybe she was?" asked Hughes softly, his expression more or less that of disbelief at what he was hearing, his mouth open slightly and his brows furrowed a bit.

"And that's not even the **strange** part," she said in a firm tone, "When the sun hit her skin she burned… the skin bubbled and turned red immediately as though she were burning alive. And when she got to the shade it healed up right there. She moved faster than I could see, too. One moment she was curled up, the next she had ducked under a bush. She looked a bit like Astra, too, which was also strange. Her face had many of the same features. And I also saw a guy in a car behind the school, watching… and do you know who he looked like?"

"Who?"

"Maes Hughes," said Amber, "He wasn't wearing glasses, but other than that he was like a clone of him. Just like Ed and Al Bell look exactly like you took the photographs of Great-Grandpa Edward and Uncle Alphonse and put them in color and made them wear modern clothing."

Hughes sat silently for a little while before he spoke again, as though he were processing everything that Amber had told him. He likely was; Amber's intelligence ran in the family. Hohenheim Elric had been practically a genius with chemistry, science and mathematics. Alphonse had worked with his brother Edward when they were little more than little children on various chemistry projects that they did out of boredom from their father's books. Edward had been high ranking in schools, practically at the very top. However, they had stopped playing with chemicals and their father's books when their mother fell ill and died.

"What you've just told me is… impossible, you realize," said Hughes slowly.

"Yes, I do realize that. I just saw the impossible in front of my eyes and all these other things have been adding up to it since then, dad. It's only now I tell you these things because I am scared out of my mind and am wholly out of my element," said Amber, staring hard at her dad with those gold eyes of hers.

Hughes knew better than to think Amber was lying or imagined it all. By her admissions this had been building over time and only now did she speak because clearly she could not put logic to it enough to keep her mind straight anymore. That meant that whatever she saw was as fantastical as she had said it was and that meant that whatever was happening had moved beyond simple "maybe it was this" or "maybe it was that" to the realm of paranormal possibilities. The only problem Hughes was truly having was that he couldn't come up with a name for anything that Amber had spoken to him about. What sort of people were these Knights and Bells?

"Amber, I want you to stay home for now. I'll tell the school your foot got worse," he said quickly and took his tie off as he stood up in single, smooth motion. He unbuttoned his collar and pulled his pistol out of its holster to check the cartridge for how many bullets he had left in it. He hardly ever needed to use it in the first place, thankfully. Amber watched him, growing a bit anxious when she saw he was checking his weapons.

"I don't know if those will work on them, dad," she said softly, "They heal very quickly."

"It'll slow them down, though," he said softly, "If we need to use it against them I want you to run as fast and hard as you can to the nearest safe place, all right?"

"Dad, Astra saved me and if that's Great-Grandpa Edward and Uncle Alphonse in the family and Dr. Knight is as good a man as people say he is, then the only one we have to worry about is Tom, right?" Amber looked up at Hughes hopefully. She didn't want them all hurt. She just wanted something that made sense—and Tom's head would be nice as a trophy as well.

Hughes sighed and nodded, putting his gun away. "You're right, Amber," he said softly, scratching his cheek, "I… I really don't know what to do."

Amber nodded and got up carefully. She walked over to Hughes and hugged him tightly to her. "We'll be all right, dad," she said softly, "We'll be all right."

"I'll confront Dr. Knight about this, honey," he said.

"Thank you, dad, but what if he denies everything? I have no tangible evidence to make him talk," said Amber.

"You said you have a necklace and a bow from a skirt, right? If they are a part of his family then he should know what sort of clothes they wear and jewelry they wear, right?" said Hughes. "Just let me borrow them tonight and I'll go talk to him."

"Tonight?" Amber moved back a bit and stared up at her dad in shock. "No, not tonight, dad."

"Fine, then tomorrow, but you're staying here. Understand?" he said sharply.

"Thank you, dad," said Amber, smiling faintly. Hughes smiled a bit at her and hugged her tightly again. After a while, he let go of her and made dinner while she sat on the couch and mulled over what had happened. When she finally did manage to sleep that night it was fitful and full of everything she had seen since she had arrived in Forks, Washington.

* * *

"What the hell caught up with Tom?" Astra stood there staring at Tom as he lay in his bed, breathing through his nose as though to keep calm. She knew he hated her being there in his room. It was his territory and he hated her for being American and what he considered obese. Or, he just basically hated her because Dr. Knight favored her and because she didn't back down when he started a fight, got into his business a lot and any number of things he found beyond annoying.

"I was going to that school," said Tom evenly as he stared up at the canopy on his four poster bed. The dark green of the canopy and curtains were velvet and shimmered only slightly from the light from the curtained window. The room itself was darkened, the walls untouched with any sort of decoration save two photographs on the wall. One was of a woman from a newspaper clipping, a woman with stringy hair, a thin face and eyes that saw in opposite directions. It was a small picture from an obituary that had been offered up upon her death. The second photo on the wall was that of a young woman, more recent, her face thin and covered in freckles, her eyes bright green and her hair messy and black, glasses perched on her nose. Amber stood not far away as she watched the scene before her and stared at the photo, marveling at how the young woman looked a lot like her cousin's friend Harry Potter.

"You were going to school.. and?" prompted Alphonse.

"And I saw a head of white hair rushing to the side of the school," said Tom, "I thought it was Astra, back from her little escapade after I had my fun with her. Oh, did you enjoy being taken care of like some little princess by dear Edward, Astra?" There was only contempt in his tone as he barely acknowledged her.

"Fuck you," she said sharply, "Now tell us what the hell happened to you, Tom."

"So rude. I thought you were from a well to do family. I guess it's true that Americans are all just so very rude and uncivilized," said Tom, smirking faintly. Astra ignored him, clearly, because she didn't hit him.

"If you're quite through, Tom, I would like to know exactly why Benedikta was so worried when we got home," said Astra, putting her hands on her hips.

"I saw a head of white hair and thought it was you, Astra, but it turned out that I was wrong," he said calmly, his cold features unmoving, "She oddly enough looked a lot like you, except thinner and better looking even though she looked as though she were caked in a year's worth of filth. I suppose she had been running around like that for a long time."

Astra's face changed as she eyed Tom, frowning deeply, recognition on her pretty, pale face. "What… do you mean?"

"Curly, white hair, gray eyes, a pointy face, though she shared many of your features, broad shoulders, large tits and a broad ass," said Tom, "Why, does it sound familiar. Don't tell me she's your sister, I'll wonder what happened to shove all the horrible traits onto you."

"Shut up," said Astra, but she didn't look interested in him anymore; she had grown paler, thoughtful. "No… no, please tell me it wasn't her," she said softly, her voice cracking slightly as pinkish tears filled her eyes.

Alphonse looked up at her and she calmed slightly, Amber feeling strangely calm herself as though Alphonse's very presence forced it on them. "Astra, calm down," he said softly, soothingly, "What's wrong? Do you recognize the description?"

"I… don't know. I haven't seen the person I'm thinking of since I changed," said Astra, trying to keep herself calmed.

Avalon's voice drifted into Amber's consciousness, whispering into her ear. "Stay away from Tom… and stay away from the girl," she said softly. Amber couldn't turn to see her, though she knew she was there, her gloved hands on Amber's slim arms. "Neither one is safe, Amber, and both will kill you if they find a chance."

"The girl? You mean the white haired one?" asked Amber softly, though she knew none of the others could hear her.

"Yes, that one," said Avalon. Then, Avalon's presence moved away from Amber as Alphonse put his hand out onto Astra's shoulder.

"My daughter, Dierdre," she said softly, "I haven't seen her since I changed. That sounds like… like what I imagine she might look like grown up. It's common on my father's side to be big breasted and my mother's side is pretty stocky. Dierdre's father… his mother is thin and pretty, all of them are pointy looking. I had a son, too, but I also haven't heard anything about him either. I tried to keep up with them, but it was hard."

"Do you think it's your daughter, Astra?" asked Alphonse.

"Dierdre… she wasn't all there in the head, I don't know what was wrong. Draco didn't want any of the doctors to look at her and didn't want to be embarrassed by having a defective daughter so he kept quiet about it. I took care of her, but she just never responded properly. It wasn't that he wouldn't take care of her, oh, no, he loved her dearly, he was just afraid to be seen with her and his parents as well."

"She sounded like a little child, speaking in third person and then got worse the more I berated her before her speech became a bit better and she tried to kill me, giggling madly," said Tom, "And Alphonse, stop trying to keep me calm, I hardly care about the spawn of this fat slob."

Astra brought her elbow down sharply into Tom's stomach and he coughed, blood spraying a little from his mouth. When she spoke it was a growl from her throat first and then her harsh tone, "Just shut up, you insane little freak!"

"Enough," said Alphonse, his tone finally becoming sharper. He pulled Astra backward and away from Tom's bed, going to the door. "We'll find out if this is the one that's been endangering out presence here."

Astra nodded after a moment, looking down at the floor. "The one that's been killing recently."

"Yes," said Alphonse. Astra nodded and then turned around, leaving. Amber sat, staring at Alphonse's back as Tom coughed and got his breath. "Tom, don't you ever say another cruel thing to Astra again. You're in enough trouble as it is without making me ready to hurt you further. You're going way too far this time."

"Sod off," croaked Tom, "I could care less what you say to me."

Alphonse didn't acknowledge him further and walked out, leaving Tom alone, or, at least to Amber, alone with her. She watched as Tom sat up slowly as the door snapped shut and locked and stood away from his bed on unsteady feet. He walked past Amber to the two photographs behind her and stared at them with a different look in his usually cold eyes. "So, mother, how do you like your son now? Is he quite what you expected? Surely you didn't think I would be like the very man that left you to rot. Don't worry, though, I made sure he was very happy to see you again to atone for those sins. Didn't I, mother?"

His eyes flicked to the other photograph and he picked it off and laid it face down, looking away. "You don't need to see this, Harriet. Just keep out of it, please. This is between mother and I." He stared at the floor as he pulled his hand away from the frame and then finally looked up at the newspaper photograph of what was clearly his mother, though Amber hardly saw any resemblance at all in the face. "So, mother, what more can an impotent thing like me do to satisfy your lust for carnage, to see humanity suffer for the sins they held against you and I for being different?"

At that moment, the ground shook under Amber's feet as Tom's eyes grew red. The dresser under his hand as he gingerly held it over the other photograph also shook and made a lot of noise until suddenly a vase broke, exploded more like, into a thousand shards that blew out everywhere. The water hit the floor in a big mess with the flowers that had been put into it falling haphazardly.

And then, Amber woke up.


End file.
